Fideism
by Anne Spoor
Summary: Sakura and Shizune are captured by rogue ninja who have just left Akatsuki. Akatsuki always cleans up their messes, but what happens when the mess includes a chance to capture the kyubi?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I own nothing except the order these words are placed on the page.**

* * *

**Fideism**

_Fideism is a theory which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths. The word fideism comes from fides, the Latin word for faith, and literally means faith-ism._

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* * *

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He didn't come back.

Three years had passed since Naruto and Sasuke had left. Half a year was left before Orochimaru would take over Sasuke's body with his forbidden technique. She knew she was supposed to hold out and wait, but she was nervous. Something was different.

Her time with Tsunade was helpful. She had learned lots about healing. All that Tsunade could teach. She had absorbed it like a sponge. Apparently, she had possessed lots of latent potential that everyone had failed to recognize. Or, at least, that's what she told herself when she felt particularly weak.

All of her achievements were due to Tsunade-shishou or Kakashi-sensei. She was just lucky to have had them as teachers, or she would never have gotten this far.

But she didn't care. Her whole world revolved around Sasuke still. Naruto was her best friend, better than Ino-pig had been. Had been. She almost cried. Thinking about how Ino had died was hard.

The last time she had seen Ino was before she left the village for her last mission. Ino had become strong, letting go of Sasuke before Sakura had even considered letting another man into her life. She still hadn't.

She curled her fist a bit tighter around her kunai. Her white knuckles pushed against her skin showing a crack down the middle of each knucklebone. A tribute to hard training, the once broken knuckles had healed nicely, and worked well, like the well-oiled machine that she was supposed to represent, they made no creaking noises from bad healing. She was still perfect physically. Just as she had been when she was 12.

Even though that was only 3 years ago, she felt that it was a miracle she had stayed so untainted. Her skin was flawless, missing the spider webs of scars possessed by most shinobi. She had none of these visible scars. It pleased her 15-year-old self quite a bit that she was able to stay this beautiful.

Her hair had re-grown as well. She thought it was beautiful. A medic had no need for fighting practicality, so she had let it grow out to its original length, with the help of some chakra enhancement. It had regained its old luster and beauty.

She had also been successful at suppressing the unladylike Inner-Sakura. Inner had never done her any good in the first place. She was not practical. Furthermore, split personality was unhealthy, and led to identity crises. Inner was not good for her.

She dropped the kunai onto her desk. She couldn't do it. She could not mar her beautiful skin. A small tear found its way into her eye and from there gazed at the world in apprehension, wondering if it should jump, before another came up behind it, and fearing nothing, pushed itself and the first tear over the edge. They fell together, desperately clutching at each other in their free fall until they hit the wooden desk and were sent flying in every direction.

Sakura wiped the tear off of her desk, hoping to keep it from ruining the wood and turned away. Slowly moving toward her bed, where she lowered herself, and curling up inside her blankets, fell asleep.

* * *

Naruto looked up at the sky. His face, tanned by the sun, had taken on the characteristics of a man. His body had grown as well. Since growing out of his old clothing he had bought clothing with black rather than blue details, and had ceased to roll up his sleeves and pant-legs.

Jiraiya had taught him loads more than he thought he could learn before. Confidently, he felt he could return to Konoha and bring Sasuke back as well, just as he had promised.

"Ero-senin?" he asked.

"Hn?" Jiraiya replied. It had occurred to him that they were later than they said they were going to be returning yesterday and he had quickly packed Naruto up in the middle of the night for their week long trek home.

"Are we there yet? My feet hurt!"

_Annoying as ever I see._ He mentally kicked Naruto for his impertinence. "It'll be a week Naruto. We just started walking an hour ago."

"But I'm _tired…_"

"Suck it up" They walked on in silence. Every so often, Naruto would send Jiraiya a pained look, and, realizing he was pushing his luck, turn back towards the road.

The sun was sinking low behind the trees before they started to look for a good place to make camp. The forest noises seemed to get louder with the deepening darkness and the unusual birds made their eerie calls between trees.

Jiraiya slowed down a bit as they neared a clearing by the lake. Bird Country was very hospitable and this camp looked perfect. Slowly, Jiraiya let his pack slip off of his shoulders and rest on the ground. Naruto gracelessly followed suit. Jiraiya and him had come up with a good method for making camp quickly, and as Jiraiya started collecting firewood, Naruto pulled out their cooking utensils and filled a pot with water before selecting some ramen, pork flavor tonight, and moving back to the middle of the campsite.

Jiraiya returned with some kindling and placed it in a cone shape, before placing a few dried leaves in the middle. A small katon jutsu later and he was back in the trees, looking for bigger firewood to burn. Naruto watched the small flame carefully, not allowing it to go out and feeding it small pieces of bark and twine, hoping to get the kindling to catch. When Jiraiya returned for the second time, Naruto unpacked both bedrolls and laid them next to each other close to the lake. It was hot in Bird in the summer and being close to the water would keep them cooler at night.

When Naruto had finished his tasks he turned back to Jiraiya, who had now brought the flame to a steady burn, where it no longer needed to be looked after, and was setting up an apparatus over it to hang the cooking pot from made of three sticks in a pyramid shape. They were held together at the top by the ring in the center of a shuriken and stuck in the ground with points sharpened by a kunai.

"Pork flavor?" Jiraiya asked sarcastically.

"Yeah, why?"

"This is the third night in a row…" Jiraiya rubbed the top of his head, mussing his spiky white hair even further.

"You got a problem with that dattebayo?" he challenged childishly, he knew that the argument would go nowhere. In fact, they had no other ramen but pork flavor, and, if Jiraiya had any talent for it, he could fish if he wanted something else to eat.

"None at all" Jiraiya's smile was more sarcastic than accepting, but Naruto didn't feel like arguing on an empty stomach.

"Do you think they'll be excited to see us?" Naruto asked, somewhat apprehensively.

"Of course Naruto! Who wouldn't want to see how you've gotten stronger?" Jiraiya hadn't told him they were late, but he didn't think much of it, it was usual for him to show up behind schedule, just like Kakashi. "We have to wake up early, so get to bed quickly"

"But we haven't eaten yet!" he whined as the pot boiled over a bit, dampening the flame before causing it to rise up in a fit of rage at being put out for even a fraction of a second.

"Well you can eat, but then you _must_ get to bed" Naruto's nod encouraged him to go to sleep before eating. He let Naruto govern himself.

* * *

"Shizune, Sakura" Tsunade addressed, "I'm sending you on a mission." Sakura nodded and Tunade took this as a sign that they had both understood, "Wasabi Jirocho, who looks after business in the Degarashi Port area of the tea country was injured in some gang wars in the area, I'm sending you to heal him"

"Tsunade I can not-" Sakura was cut off.

"Sakura. I know you want to stay here and wait for Naruto, but it's been six months since he was supposed to get home. Three years is long enough to wait. He'll come back when he comes back, you waiting for him won't solve anything."

"But shishou- this is a D ranked mission, why not send someone who needs the experience, I've been a chunin for a year and a half now, I'm not some novice who can't do anything for themselves!"

"Youre right, this mission is below your caliber, and that's why I'm sending Shizune with you."

"What?" this time it was Shizune's turn to be frustrated, "I don't think we need someone to go with Sakura on a mission as easy as this"

"Shizune. This is a mission that is not only to heal Wasabi-san, who is a friend of mine, but also to show Tea Country our goodwill. Lately relations between Fire and Tea have been slightly strained, and Sakura was specifically asked for in this mission. You will accompany her to show that we wish to help as much as we can."

"Fine" Sakura sighed, frustrated, before turning to leave.

"You leave in two hours, meet Shizune at the east gate!" Tsunade called after her. Sakura made no motion to say that she had heard, but Tsunade knew that she had.

"Keep and eye on her Shizune. Please." Tsunade said softly, "Im worried about her, loosing both of her teammates like that"

Shizune nodded, "I know."

Sakura was ready in exactly 36 minutes. A trip to Ichiraku took her to an hour and 4 minutes. She still had 56 minutes to kill. She pulled out her wallet and looked inside. After paying for Ichiraku she still had quite a sum of money. Medical missions generally paid well, and she had been on some really important missions lately, not to mention being a top worker in the hospital. Her hourly salary was enough to pay for her small apartment.

Not that it was a nice apartment. She could afford better. Much better. But she didn't need it. It was close to the hospital, so when she had to wake up at ungodly hours for work she didn't have to get up quite so early. And the neighborhood wasn't _that_ bad. Really. It was a bit unruly, but nothing she couldn't handle. The local gangs didn't have any problems with ninjas, so as long as she didn't hurt them, they wouldn't hurt her. Anyway, if they did try to hurt her, they'd be the ones in jail. Or dead. They weren't very talented.

A trip to the ninja outfitter nearby wouldn't kill her wallet, and she had plenty for luxuries on the trip. Her rent had been paid in advance. She smiled slightly at the possibility of a small splurge. Something she did rarely.

She looked down at herself. Now that she thought about it, she realized that she had not changed much about her appearance for a long time. She still wore the same kind of things she did when she was a genin. The only significant difference was her switch to knee-high boots with small heels from her flat ninja-sandals. She almost sighed in disgrace. Everyone else had changed something more significant about himself or herself. Maybe it was time for a change. _More back is more professional_, she thought as she entered the store.

She took one look at the small section of red and pink with the other colors before moving back to the bigger section of black. She looked at the standard merchandise of spandex and flak jackets apprehensively before laying eyes on a black fishnet shirt with a red band at the top. She looked at it closely before picking it up and placing it over her arm, a quick look around showed her that a black halter with a zipper in the back would cover most of her fishnet, until midway down her torso, where the fishnet would stick out a few centimeters past the bottom of the top. She placed that over her arm as well.

Looking for different bottoms than usual was harder than she thought it would be. The store didn't carry much in the way of feminine looking pants. Skirts were in short order. She was about to give up before she spotted a pleated back skirt with a high-rise waist that her spandex shorts might fit under.

Upon trying the clothing on, she found that the high-rise skirt just missed the bottom of her fishnet top. It had a… slimming effect on her. She pulled her headband from her hair to tie around her waist and rearranged her hair to fit her face differently. Her elbow bands came off next. And then her gloves. She looked more… natural. It was… nice…she guessed. She decided that instead of spandex shorts she'd use elastic medical tape to wrap her lower body under the skirt, it would be white, but it wouldn't stick out from under the skirt like the shorts turned out to do.

Quickly, noticing she only had about ten minutes left until she had to leave, she bought three pairs of identical sets and put them in her pack. It seemed frivolous, but she also purchased a new weapons pouch and some new kunai and shuriken. The weapons had red binding rather than white, and they made it feel like she hadn't changed the essentials of her life by switching clothing. Somewhere in the back of her mind she wondered if this shirt made her look flatter than she was, but she decided not to worry about it. She had never had much chest-wise to begin with.

"Shizune!" Sakura called, waving her now bare hand towards the small woman. Not that Sakura was large, she hadn't grown past 161cm. and with the heels, she got to 166. Maybe.

Shizune blinked visibly, but said nothing. Maybe Sakura's change was a good sign. She didn't know Sakura as well as she could have, but it wasn't her fault particularly. It was just that both of them were always busy, and when they weren't busy they were sleeping or trying to get some time alone. They hadn't had time to become good friends. Not that she wouldn't have been if she had had the time.

"Are we leaving?" Sakura asked curiously, as Shizune had failed to step outside of the gates behind Sakura.

"Hai, sorry, I was thinking," Shizune smiled.

"No problem," Sakura smiled back, "I'm not in a huge hurry unless you are." It struck Shizune that Sakura's eyes were brilliantly green before she lifted her foot off the ground of the city of Konoha and placed it, just barely, in the wild that made up most of the Land of Fire. "Off to Tea Country, right?" Sakura asked brightly.

"Hai." It struck Shizune that this cheerfulness could be a show, just for her, to make her trip more pleasant, _I'll do my best to cheer you up Sakura_, she thought, _It's the least I can do for you._

Their trek would take a week if they moved at a civilian pace, but they planned to be back in ten days. Their paced picked up as they raced through the trees at ninja speed. A peacefulness surrounded their movements as their increasing speed reached a steady pace. Their bodies flashed from tree branch to tree branch. Racing against time to reach their future patient as quickly as they could. The journey could be made in 48 hours non-stop at this pace. If they could do it that fast, they would certainly save Wasabi-san. If they didn't, the cances decreased with steady certainty, until they reached 0%. Failure.

Shizune knew Sakura would not allow that to happen. Sakura had failed too many times before to allow herself to fail at a simple mission such as this. Sakura put her all into everything, and even when she didn't get results, she knew she had tried. That's why she had made such an excellent medic-nin. Sakura, like Naruto, didn't know when to give up. This ability had led her to save more hopeless-case patients than anyone had previously, excluding only Tsunade-sama, the fifth Hokage.

The steady pat-pat of their feet hitting the branches led Shizune and Sakura off into dullness, and their minds achieved a kind of sleep, while their bodies ran into overdrive.

* * *

Tsunade looked over her papers to find a genin had opened her door and disturbed her peace. He looked terrified to have found the lady-Hokage asleep at her desk.

"What do you want?" she demanded, grouchily, before picking up a cup of sake she had been sipping before she had fallen asleep and downing it.

"Ano…" he said quietly.

"Speak up!" she yelled, "I don't have all day." _Actually I do, _The part of her that was still drunk giggled, _I have all damn day to listen to this brat stutter! But I can't let him know that, now can I? _Her mind flew away into fits of hysterical giggles and she barely suppressed a hiccup before becoming serious again.

"There was a message this morning and, ano…" he mumbled a bit again.

"Yes?" she was growing more and more impatient.

"Jiyaria-sama and Uzumaki Naruto-san will be here in six days!" he practically shouted. His terror at having to address the Hokage made him antsy, apparently, because directly after delivering the message, he ran out of the room and slammed the door behind himself.

_Damn boy._ She thought, _Am I really that scary? That's a real self-confidence killer. Ugh…_ Her head dropped back onto the cool surface of the table for a moment before snapping back up with a loud pop.

"What?" She yelled, "they're coming back now?" Her hand came up to rub the back of her neck without thinking about it and she knocked her sake bottle to the floor. "damn!" she cursed, just as four ANBU flashed into her office.

"Are you alright Hokage-sama?" asked one, with a tiger mask. "What happened?"

"I'm fine," she glared, "Why do you bumbling idiots have to stumble your way in here every time I find it necessary to yell about something?"

"Hokage-sama…" Tiger-mask trailed off.

"I know. I'm fine. Get out." She rubbed her forehead with her thumb and index finger. _What to do about Naruto and Sakura?_

She slowly reached for her sake bottle, and realizing it had spilled its contents all over the floor cursed silently. Nothing was worse than spilt sale.

She guessed that Naruto would just have to wait for Sakura to return before gallivanting off to find Sasuke. Sakura would have a fit if she found out that Naruto had left without seeing her. Sakura had just depared yesterday too. What a shame.

Keeping him in the village wouldn't be too hard, she decided, as long as he cooperated. A few meals at Ichiraku might be able to keep him quiet long enough to wait for Sakura's return. Maybe she wouldn't have to bribe him at all. Maybe he would be so exhausted from his journey that he would just collapse for a week. She doubted it.

_Hopefully, _she thought to herself, _he'll be so upset at missing Sakura that he'll wait without any complaint…_ _don't bet on it._

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Naruto yawned. Their second day on the road had been uneventful. Today was the third day. It was only 9:00 and already he was tired. "Hey, Ero-senin."

"Hn?"

"Are we there yet?" _Déjà-vu._ Jiraiya thought disdainfully. _If it isn't the third morning in a row…_ Jiraiya looked up, an idea came to him. "Naruto, if we speed up travel for the next two days, we will have time to stop somewhere nice"

"Is this another hot spring, ero-senin?" Naruto asked cautiously, gazing at Jiraiya from the corners of his eyes.

"Iie. We don't always stop at hot springs Naruto." Jiraiya looked somewhat defeated though, and Naruto took this as encouragement.

"Because if we do, I at least want some ramen." He nodded to himself. "All I can eat ramen. Your treat?" Naruto looked at him sideways, hoping that his 'cute face' was going to get him some fresh ramen.

"Hai, hai…" Jiyaria seemed resigned, but it was only a façade. Elated that they were going to one last hot spring, he picked up his pace and Naruto followed suit.

Racing through the trees was a good way to take his mind off of the fact that he had been woken up early three mornings in a row. Slowly, the movements became more automatic until his mind was able to wander off into a small reprise. Jiraiya, noticing that Naruto had mentally checked-out, sped up a bit to take the lead. Thus allowing Naruto his rest. He was still a boy after all. Two days of this kind of travel would allow for one day of rest at the hot springs. The toad sage looked forward to his future relaxation.

Night came sooner than expected and they fell back into their easy routine, Naruto decided that since Ero-senin was paying for ramen in whatever town they ended up in he would catch some fish for dinner in the nearby stream. When Jiraiya noticed he was gone, he carefully noted that it was going to take more work to keep the fire going at first. _But dinner will be fresh and good_.

Naruto returned quickly with the fish and the two of them sat in companionable silence while it cooked. _This wouldn't be possible three years ago. Naruto really has grown. _The two's contentment at the situation was almost palpable. They ate, and then they slept.

* * *

Sakura's heavy breathing filled the room. Shizune watched quietly as Sakura's hands hovered lightly above Wasabi-san's injuries. He was not injured badly enough for it to kill him anymore, but Sakura wanted to finish the healing as quickly as possible in order to return to Konoha more quickly.

It was not that Sakura was tired by this insignificant amount of healing, it was the healing on top of forty-eight hours of constant running. She had healed people much worse off than this without breaking a sweat before.

Shizune was worried about it, She didn't think that she should finish the healing right now, it wouldn't matter if she did it now or later anyway.

Sakura would have none of it. Wasabi-san was in pain, she said. He needed her to keep the pain at bay. Shizune couldn't say anything to that except that Sakura was going to wear herself out, and that it wasn't necessary.

Sakura's head bobbed slightly and Shizune's worry reached a new climax, how would it look if Sakura just collapsed on top of the patient? But Sakura seemed more determined than ever, and finished the healing quickly after that.

"Arigatou Sakura-san" Said Wasabi-san's attendant from the village. "You may rest in the room down the hall, if you wish"

Sakura nodded tiredly and Shizune moved to help her up, before helping her along the hallway to the indicated room. Sakura was asleep before she had even pulled the covers of the bed over herself. Fully clothed and unfed, she had just fallen on top of the bedsheets. Shizune smiled slightly. She hadn't known that Sakura was the type to work until she could no longer help herself go to sleep. It was a good quality, albeit foolhardy, in Shizune's opinion. She liked Sakura better for it.

Shizune quietly made preparations for her own slumber, hoping not to wake Sakura, although she knew it would take much more noise than she could make just preparing for bed to wake the exhausted girl. The 30-year-old woman hoped that Sakura had as good an opinion of her as she did of also hoped that they would be able to grow closer over the next few days, they had eight to get home, and maybe Sakura would relax and let them go at a steady walk rather than an enhanced ninja run. Slowly, her eyes drifted shut.

* * *

The ramen was delicious. The fifth bowl went down just as well as the first four had and it was soon added to the stack next to him. Jiraiya was aghast. "Treating" Naruto was expensive, but this was taking it to a whole new level. He quickly looked through his wallet again, his mostly eaten ramen steaming under his hands and making them slightly damp. The smell of salt and meat was so strong that Jiraiya almost wished he had not come to the hot springs. Almost.

Coming into the hot springs that evening, he had spotted some perfect subjects to study entering the baths. He had vowed to go find them as soon as Naruto finished eating his food. It had only been 20 minutes and already he was antsy to go find them. Naruto's complete silence and mass consumption of ramen didn't help.

"Mm." Naruto said finally, "I'm stuffed! Thanks Oji-san!" before getting up and leaving the ramen stand for the hotel room Jiraiya had booked for him.

Jiraiya passed the money to the shopkeeper before Naruto could be shouted after. He left quickly to go find the women.

"Thank you for your patronage!" the shopkeeper yelled after him happily.

A quick henge in a nearby alleyway allowed him to walk into the women's bath unnoticed. He almost got a nosebleed immediately, he had to hide behind a towel to not get too excited.

Naruto nearly cracked up laughing upon seeing Jiraiya follow his advice. A henge would be a much better way to hide in a woman's bath. Ero-senin would never change…

* * *

Sakura awoke to find that Shizune had left the small room. She sat up and as surprised to find that she was still fully dressed. A quick check of herself proved that she had not changed in over two days. She smelled bad. She ran her hand through her bangs to get them out of her face and instead of her beautiful sleek hair she found a tangled mess of oily pink fur. She needed a shower.

Looking around the room from her vantage point in the bed, she discovered that there were two doors leading out of it. One led, presumably to the hallway, and the other, to a possible bathroom.

She got up and moved to the closer door. Opening it revealed a short hallway with wooden floors and oriental doors on one side. _The other door_, she assumed, _must lead to a bathroom._ She walked over to it and pulled it open.

The bathroom was tiny. The shower booth was barely large enough for her to stand up with both hands at her sides in. _Still,_ she decided, _a shower is a shower, _and she quickly turned the water on. _No hot water_, she noted dryly, _wonderful_. She ran a small hand through her tangled hair distractedly, she really wanted to get back to Konoha.

Pulling off her clothing she looked at herself. _Still perfect_, she smiled a bit. Remembering that the shower wouldn't get any hotter, she stepped into it and had to bite back a gasp as the icy water coated her body. She used to sing in the shower, in another, happier, time. The water running through her hair was no longer enough to make her happy, and she was no good at singing anyway.

The soap she had brought didn't go on as well in the cold and it took her longer to shower than usual, not that it ever took her more than 10 minutes anymore, the time spent in the shower was wasted, unless she was washing her gorgeous hair, which was perfectly acceptable.

Finished showering, she stepped out of the booth. Water splashed on the floor as she wrung out her long hair and then, using a small wind-jutsu she blew it dry. Arranging it took longer than usual, due to the fact that she had not quite gotten used to wearing her headband around her waist instead of on her head. She no longer needed to anyway, she had grown in to her gigantic forehead, and now it was just above average size.

She pulled a small, threadbare towel around her naked body and slipped back into the room. Shizune had not come back. Her pack at the foot of her bed was still sealed and she opened it, careful not to let the little towel fall as she did so. Pulled her panties on and then her skirt over them, she'd wrap her thighs for modesty later. Her bra and fishnet shirt came next. Finally she pulled the top of her halter around her neck, freeing her hair from it and then zipped it up in back. She had just picked up her bandages to wrap herself with when there was a crash in the hallway.

"Shh! You clumsy idiot!" a hushed voice whispered feverishly in the hallway.

"Sorry," a smaller voice tried to echo the quietness of the first and just managed to piss the other voice off. She heard a small thwack as the bigger voice presumably hit the smaller for his idiocy.

Sakura grabbed a kunai from her pack. She was weak from the strain of the past few days, and it was always safer to be visibly armed than not.

"Hello?" she called out stupidly, "Is anybody there?" all sounds from the hallway ceased. Just as she reached for the handle, her door flew open and hit her on the head. Dizzy, she fell back a step and the owners of the voices stumbled in. Noticing that she had a weapon, they gave her a wide berth.

"Just a little girl?" the smaller one asked.

"Shut up!" she's a healer. Sakura's eyes grew hazy as she tried to clear her head from being knocked. She kept her kunai in front of her torso.

"She looks weak…" he laughed a bit, "all we did was open a door on her" She blinked hard and when her eyes opened the men were gone. She rubbed her head, _what?_ A whooshing noise preceded the bang of something heavy coming down on top of her head. She stayed conscious long enough to see Shizune appear in the doorway. _Shizune, _she thought, _thank god…_

_

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**A/N: Please Read and Review! This is my first story so any kind of comment would be welcome. Constructive criticism is much appreciated. **


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I own nothing except the order these words are placed on the page.**

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* * *

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**Fideism**

_Fideism is a theory which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths. The word fideism comes from fides, the Latin word for faith, and literally means faith-ism._

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* * *

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"Mmm… Cold…" she hummed.

"Get up." a gruff, somewhat familiar voice said.

"Mmm…" she rolled over to get away from the disturbance only to find that it was somehow colder to her left. She rolled back "I'm cold…" she mumbled.

"Get up. Now." the voice was angrier than before and she felt herself drifting closer toward wakefulness. Slowly she let her eyes drift open. She found herself looking at a face, mostly hidden under a mop of dirty black hair. Hard brown eyes stared out at her from a pallid face. A nose that had clearly been broken hung ominously over two thin lips closed tightly over crooked teeth. A scar ran down the side of his face, as if he had been one of Kabuto's psychotic test subjects that turned up in the medical wings every once in a while.

A hand grabbed her hair and wrenched her into a sitting position. She was suddenly wide awake. From the position she was in, she could see that she was at the back of a large cave. On the ground not 3 meters for her was a large lump, hidden under a blanket. Sticking out of the lump was a leg pale, skinny hand._ Is that dead?_ Her eyes widened slightly, and she turned to look at the man with the broken nose.

"Fix him." He pointed at the lumps under the blanket.

"Wha-?"

"Now!" his voice was raised in tone, but not in volume. Everything he had said was absolutely silent and it struck her that maybe he wasn't speaking because he was worried someone would hear. Just who that person was, she had no idea.

She slowly moved across the floor of the cave, stooping over when the ceiling became to low even for her small body. The lumps under the blanket moved and the hand retracted beneath its cover. Her hand reached out and took a fistful of blanket into itself before slowly pulling it away from its resident.

The man under the blanket had long brown hair. At least she thought it was brown. It may have been red or blonde, but it was so grimy that she couldn't get a clear reading on its color. Tufts of it littered the floor around his head. It was falling out by the handful. The burns covered his face and scalp, singing off his eyebrows and lashes. Giant festering sores leaked blood and clear fluid onto the floor of the cave. The smell was wretched.

Sakura switched into medic-mode and let her hand hover over the man's face. Slowly the open sores turned healthy colors, and then they closed. Swelling decreased and the skin fell back into a tight position against facial features that hadn't been apparent when she had started.

"His left eye," she said softly, "he will be blind in it."

The man with the broken nose nodded solemnly. "Fix the rest."

"There's more?" Sakura asked with mild surprise.

"Just fix it."

Sakura moved the blanket farther down from his head. She stopped at mid-torso. An open gash 3cm wide and 20cm long occupied the space from his collarbone to his diaphragm. His shirt was torn in more places than the gash and she used that to rip it off. Her hands shaking from the medical work she had already done she hovered over the wound. Green healing chakra flowed out of her fingertips and she let them drag through the air just above the wound.

This time she didn't focus on making the cleanup pretty, she just focused on 'fixing it'. When the wound was just a thin scab sticking out above a knotted scar she looked up at the man with the broken nose again. He nodded at the blanket and she gulped. _Another one?_

She pulled the blanket down again. One horribly mangled leg, revealed by the lifted blanket stuck out at her at an odd angle. The bone, which was protruding through the front of the calf, was not cleanly broken, and slivers of bone poked the empty air. Blood still flowed slightly from the gaping hole around the break. Big purple bruises surrounded the break and fanned out until they reached just above his knee and his ankle. The bone would have to be pulled back in. And then set.

She looked at it in horror. She had never been faced with an injury of this degree by herself before. The part of her that as switched off, her 15 year old self, wanted to throw up at the disgusting sight. Already flies were buzzing around the dying flesh. It would have to be fixed fast.

She silently steadied her mind before reaching out both hands. She grasped his knee and his ankle.

In his sleep, the man whimpered slightly.

"I'm sorry," she whispered as she pulled, hard.

* * *

Naruto looked at the gates to the village. He and Jiraiya had arrived in the evening of the sixth day. One day early. _Sakura-chan, I can't wait to see you. I've grown up._ The north gates were opened wide and he felt at home immediately. He had worried somewhere in his mind that he would not.

As he stepped over the threshold of the village, which was really a city, it seemed as though a huge weight had lifted off of his shoulders. His next step was more of a jump and Jiraiya didn't fail to notice.

"Good to be home?" he asked.

"Hai!" Naruto's blue eyes were lit up and seemed to be brighter than usual. "I have to go see Sakura-chan!"

"Wait-!" Jiraiya called after him, but it was too late. "We have to file a mission report with Tsunade…" Naruto's form got smaller as he quickly hopped across the rooftops into the living district of Konoha. He was headed for Sakura's apartment.

Left to his responsibilities as Naruto's sensei, Jiraiya headed slowly towards the Hokage Tower. The report would take hours to write up, and he figured this wasn't something he should procrastinate.

Naruto's feet touched down on top of Sakura's apartment complex. _Finally, you can see how much stronger I've gotten. Sakura-chan!_ He walked around the side of the building and stepped onto her tiny patio. She never locked this door. He pushed down the handle. _Hmm… must be stuck…_ He pushed harder. He pulled it up. He pulled it toward himself. He jiggled it in its socket._ It's locked? She must be out..._

Naruto let his mind wander and try to think of where she was. _She could be at Ichiraku!_ Naruto thought cheerfully. He sped off in the direction of his favorite place in Knonoha.

"Jii-san! Have you seen Sakura-chan?" Naruto practically yelled in Teuchi, the owner's face.

"N-Naruto?"

"Hai!" Naruto said cheerfully.

"When did you get back? Ayame- youll never guess who's here!" Teuchi called back to his daughter.

"Who is it?" she called, pushing aside the curtains that divided the kitchen from the bar area. "Naruto! Welcome back," She smiled softly.

"Thanks! Have _you_ seen Sakura-chan?"

"You mean that little pink-haired girl you used to be with all the time?" Ayame asked.

"Hai! Have you seen her? Do you know where she is?"

"No… I'm sorry Naruto, I haven't seen her in almost a week"

"Would you like some ramen Naruto?" Teuchi offered, "You can have it on the house." He smiled. Naruto loved that the two shopkeepers had never treated him differently because of the kyubi.

"Can I take that offer later? I have to go find Sakura-chan!" and before the two could say anything, Naruto had left the small restaurant. _Maybe she's at the old training grounds! _Naruto had many fond memories of training together with Sakura-chan and Sasuke-teme on the field they had taken the bell test on.

His trek to the three posts took him a bit longer than the trip from Sakura-cahn's apartment to Ichiraku Ramen. He took his time through the trees making sure he didn't miss her hiding somewhere. It was possible that she was just playing with him. Teasing him for leaving her.

When he got to the posts he looked around at the field. The grass was taller than it had been when he was little, but everything else seemed so much smaller. A shuriken was in the grass by his toe and it occurred to him that it could be Sakura-chan's, left over from her last practicing session. He picked it up and pocketed it. He would give it to her when he found her.

"Sakura-chan!" he yelled out at the training field "I found your shuriken! Come out and get it-dattebayo" he waited a moment, "Sakura-cahn?" _She isn't here either?_

He walked slowly back towards the city-limits._ Why isn't Sakura-chan anywhere? Could she be hurt? What if she's in the hospital?_ Naruto picked up his pace. His breathing became more erratic and his heart beat faster as he steadily increased his speed.

He was sprinting through Konoha. His body was a thin, orange blur racing over the rooftops and through the alleyways. The hospital didn't seem to get any closer. His mini panic attack reached a height half a kilometer from the building. He had to keep moving. _If Sakura-chan is hurt… I should have been there to protect her! This is all my fault!_

He stopped, out of breath, in front of the hospital doors before walking quickly it. He held his breath while he waited for a receptionist's attention.

"Hai, may I help you uh…"

"Uzumaki Naruto"

"…Uzumaki-san?"

"Hai, I need to see Sakura-chan"

"_Haruno_ Sakura-san?"

"Hai!" he said, he was worried now, the receptionist's tone of voice made him scared that she was in trouble, or worse. Dead.

"I'm sorry Uzumaki-san, Haruno Sakura-san is not here at the moment."

"What? Where is she?" Naruto demanded.

The receptionist, taken aback by Naruto's yelling quietly informed Naruto that Sakura was on a mission, in Tea Country.

"Oh," he said, a bit put-out, "thanks anyway."

"You're very welcome Uzumaki-san" she said, feeling just a little bit sorry for the boy, "Haruno-san should be back in a few days, She has work at 3:00 A.M. the day she gets back, if you stop by, I'm sure you'll catch her, she's always right on time." She smiled brightly, "Have a good day"

"Hai… you too." Naruto left the hospital relieved, but without his initial energy. The two and a half hours spent looking for Sakura had worn him out. Not finding her hadn't helped either.

* * *

The man's scream erupted through the cave. It rolled out around Sakura and picked her up, shooting through her nerves and into her veins. A rush of adrenaline filled her body and the hair on the back of her arms and neck stood on end. Sakura realized her eyes were closed.

The first thing she saw when she opened them was the leg. The bone was fully back inside the skin but the gaping hole that it had poked through was gushing blood. Next she saw the hand of the man with the broken nose. It was shaking and hovering around his comrade. Fluttering from the hole to the knee to his own lap before making the rounds again. Sakura let the man's ankle go and stopped the hand.

"Hold still," she said, "the worst isn't over yet" The man's eyes widened in surprise at the reassuring words and his hands moved through his hair nervously. The black locks tangled a bit more and became more unruly. "One… two. Three!"

She steeled herself against the oncoming wave of terrible sound. As she snapped the bone back into place. Once it was set she released her grip on the leg and she released the tight control over what she allowed herself to listen to. The injured man's groans still echoed through the cavern.

The man with the broken nose seemed really shaken, and his already pallid face had lost even more color. "I need something to use as a splint. I don't have enough chakra to heal the bone completely." She sighed, "There's nothing else, is there?"

The man shook his head, "ill get you a splint." He slowly searched the cave for his pack and, upon finding it under the blanket she had removed from his companion, he pulled out a scroll. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him making hand seals and removing several long pieces of wood from it before she returned her attention to the healing.

_The bleeding first._ She placed her hands over the gaping wound and allowed the green chakra flowing from them to seal the skin and stop the bleeding. _Muscle and tissue damage. _She closed her eyes and let her mind see the injury below the skin by feeling. Slowly, her chakra knit the muscle together. Tissues formed around the muscle and the internal bleeding started to ebb.

Sakura sighed in relief as she moved on to fixing the bone. Bone took longer to heal than anything else. Slowly she coaxed the splintered fragments into some semblance of the bone's original shape before she practically passed out. She blinked.

One hand shot out from her small frame, absent of chakra, toward the man with the broken nose. Her fingers moved expectantly.

"Wha-? Oh! Right." He placed the splint into her hand and she went back to work. Her small hands fiddled with the ripped shirt and ripped it into strips before she lined the splint up with the leg.

The man groaned again, in pain, as she tied the first bandage around his leg and the splint. The second bind was worse than the first. The man whimpered and tears ran down his face as she tightly bound the splint to him. Finally She secured it once down by the man's ankle.

"Done." She sighed as she fell towards her right. When she hit the floor she was completely passed out. The man with the broken nose didn't know what to do. Why had she helped him anyway? He knew Konoha ninjas were given to spontaneously helping people they didn't know, but he had kidnapped her. _Maybe it is her oath as a healer or doctor or whatever. She _has_ to help people in need._ That _must_ be it.

He pulled the blanket over his friend and then, looking back, turned Sakura around so her head was even with her patient's. He pulled the blanket over her, just a bit. _Thank you._

"What is this, Kakuzu-san?" an eerie voice shot out into the cave, plunging his world into darkness.

* * *

Jiraiya had talked to Tsunade all afternoon. Now that it was dark, they left together. Tsunade had, of course, had a bit too much to drink and her speech slurred a little as she leaned on Jiraiya for support. She had even made him carry her bag, which was _heavy_. Taking her home hadn't been his plan. He slowly let his mind roam toward the possibilities. _What if she suddenly comes on to me? Do I smell bad? How many times can I refuse before I loose the opportunity?_

When they arrived at her home some 20 minutes later Tsunade thanked him and went inside, locking the door behind her. He heard her slump onto something soft, _a couch maybe_, he thought. _Stupid. She wouldn't. I feel so stupid for even thinking she might. It's been years since I got my hopes up like that. Stupid._ He pushed back oncoming tears of frustration and disappointment. Tsunade would never accept him like that. He was acting like a child.

He stepped down from her door and turned around to walk away. It was only 11:00 PM. and there should be some party going on somewhere he could crash. He took his next step cautiously and was about to take off when he heard the door creak just a bit. He whirled around. Tunade was standing on her doorstep, looking at him.

"Umm…" she slurred. Jiraiya's heart soared for a minute. _Just this one time, she'd be the one who needed him. _He took a step closer to her, until they were just two decimeters away.

"Hai?" Tsunade looked at him heart rate increased slightly. The prospect of acceptance swam through his veins and he had to physically control himself from jumping the gun.

"Umm… you still have my bag…" she looked down at it.

"Oh, Hai, right. Right." He smiled and lifted up his arm and handed the bag to her. He paused.

"Right, well… good night" She smiled and pulled herself inside, shutting the door.

"Good night… Tsunade." His face fell as he turned around and walked slowly away. The party would have to do without him. He headed home at civilian pace, enjoying the balmy night air.

When Jiraiya reached his apartment he couldn't help but sigh. She hadn't run after him. She hadn't even said his name. He unlocked the door and stepped inside. His face felt a bit hot. He sighed again before pushing the door just enough to get it closed behind him. He sat down on the small red chair in the entryway. A red-hot tear fell down his face before he pulled himself together. The door clicked shut.

Slowly, he stood up again and made his way to the kitchen._ Perhaps sake_, he thought, _will help._

_

* * *

_

Sakura was awakened when the steady rhythm stopped. She really wished she hadn't woken up. Her head felt like someone had split it open with a hammer. Now that she thought about it, her hair was sticking to her head in a strange way. _Had_ someone split it open?

Her eyes shot open and her hand flashed to her hairline and then to just in front of her eyes. _Blood? My blood?_ Her hand shot back up to her head, looking for a cut. _Where is it?_ She couldn't find one. _If it's not my blood then, who's blood is it?_

"I see you're awake." A smooth voice made her look up. Sitting in front of her was a man. "Hello little girl." She tried to scoot away from the man but found that her back was against something rough. She was seeing red.

"I don't believe she's taking it well Hidan-san." A soft chuckle swirled out of the darkness to the right of her. Her head snapped in that direction only to see another man. _What the hell do I do? _ Her mind screamed. _What do I do?_

_**The hell if I know. **_She looked around for the source of the third voice. It sounded like it was from behind her. She whirled around.

"What's behind you girl?" the voice to the right asked, berating her.

"I thought-" _**Stop acting like a freak Sakura.**_Her head snapped around once more and her hands covered her ears, _Stop it! Go away whatever you are! _She screamed in her head.

"What _are_ you doing little girl?" the one called Hidan asked.

"I'm-" _**Don't talk to these guys!**_"Shut _up_!" she shouted.

"That was a bit disrespectful Kakuzu-san, don't you think?" Hidan was playing with a huge three-bladed scythe.

"Wait! I'm sorry, gomennasai, I didn't mean to, I just-" she stammered through clattering teeth. She had just realized how cold it was wherever she was.

"You just…?" Kakuzu's soft voice prodded her.

"I just… thought I heard something…" she ran her hands through her sticky hair. "Who… who's is this?" she held up her hand slowly so that the blood on her fingertips was clearly visible to the two men.

"The blood?" Hidan chuckled. Sakura nodded. "It belongs to your friend."

"Shizune?" Sakura's eyes darted from side to side anxiously, hoping to spot the small woman.

"Who is Shizune?" Hidan looked surprised.

"My friend. The girl. Where is she?" Sakura seemed panicked.

"There was no girl with you in the cave" Kakuzu said flatly.

"The man with the broken nose. Hitoshi. It's his blood."

Sakura visibly sighed in relief. Kakuzu and Hidan were surprised. "They were not your friends? Your companions?" She turned her attention to Hidan again.

"They kidnapped me to heal their friend," she said, "the one under the blanket."

"You healed Nao?" Kakuzu's surprise at this development was evident. Somehow, it pissed Sakura off.

"What? Just because I have pink hair doesn't mean I can't be useful? Thanks a bunch. Could you just kill me already? I'm tired of people like you thinking I can't do things. Go away." She placed her head between her knees, getting blood on her once clean flesh.

"Black?" Hidan skickered. "Interesting choice"

"What?" she asked.

"It would seem," Kakuzu said patronizingly, "that Hidan-san is referring to your undergarments, little girl."

"Oh!" she immediately collapsed her knees to the ground and tried to cover them with her ridiculously short skirt. Her blush covered her entire face. Kakuzu snickered. "I- I meant to wrap them but I was taken before I could-"

Loud laughing stopped her embarrassed explaining. Hidan, it seemed, had quite the sense of humor. Kakuzu looked on disapprovingly. "Hidan-san. Calm yourself, or I'll have to kill you."

"You don't have to tell me every fucking time" Hidan sobered up immediately.

Sakura was taken a bit aback by the sudden changes in demeanor. "Umm… what happens to me?" Sakura tried another approach.

"That's a good question little girl, what happens to you?" Hidan asked her.

"Um… I don't know?"

Kakuzu snickered. "She could be useful, we don't have a competent healer."

Suddenly something clicked in her head. The cloaks they were wearing were the same that had been described to her. "Akatsuki" she hissed. Hidan and Kakuzu looked at her in surprise. The malice rolled off of her small frame pushing the air away from her. It could almost be felt in the air. "You tried to capture Naruto."

"Well, little girl, it seems you know who we are. We now have two choices." Kakuzu turned back to Hidan.

"Lets kill her." Hidan chuckled, "She can be a part of my ritual."

"I think you'll find that Leader-sama will like the second option better, Hidan-san" Kakuzu said slowly, letting its implications seep in.

"Fine." He turned on Sakura, his eyes lit up as he reached out his hand, "So you know Kyubi-kun, do you?"

* * *

For the third time that night, Naruto got up to go to the bathroom. 5:37 AM. He was gonna die. Not finding Sakura had left him disappointed and that had affected his sleep. He hadn't slept well at all.

He rubbed his spiky yellow hair before he opened the door to his bathroom. Doing his business took all of 10 seconds and he cursed his small bladder. He pulled his pants back on and washed his hands. A new habit he had acquired living with Jiraiya, who had a keen sense of smell, despite his age.

He looked back at the clock in the hallway. 5:38 AM. _Damn. I'm not tired, _he grumbled to himself. He slowly approached his dresser and pulled out one of his four identical outfits. He slowly slid his pajamas off and put them on. He tied his headband around his forehead, as he always had. The new, black fabric was nicer than the old blue stuff, and he was happy he had changed it. It didn't itch his forehead like it used to.

He ran his hands through his hair again until it reached just the right amount of messiness. Then he leaned forward, until he was just centimeters from the glass of the mirror. His eyes had bags under them. He roughly pulled them down with his fingertips, exposing the red tissue that made up the layer around his eyes. The veins were clearly visible, and it was shiny. _Eww._ He let go of the loose skin and his eyes slipped back into their normal shape.

He went into his kitchen, which hadn't been seen in three years, and decided he couldn't eat anything in it. The refrigerator smelled like a dead fish and rotten fruit. He almost threw up when he opened it. He would have to clean it later, he guessed. _Damn. I just got back and I already have to clean stuff up._

He decided that there was nothing better to do this morning but clean, since he wasn't expected to leave his house until noon. He was _supposed_ to be sleeping.

_Whatever._ He went back into his room and dug around for a bit until he found an old pillowcase. He tied it around his nose and mouth like a bandana and went back into the kitchen. _Lets do this…_

_

* * *

_

At 2:00 PM. sharp there was a knock on his door. Jiraiya groaned. _What now?_ He got up slowly and kept his sheets around himself to answer the door. _This better be good._

He opened the door to find a startled Naruto on his doorstep. "What is it Naruto?" he asked harshly.

"Um…" I was wondering if you'd want to go get some lunch, I know it's late but no one else is in town and-"

"No." Jiraiya tried to shut the door on the smiling boy.

"But Ero-senin! Its 2:00 in the afternoon and you look like you just woke up…" Naruto said, "Don't you wanna eat?"

"No. I have a headache. Go away." This time Jiraiya did close the door. But not quick enough to see the boy's face fall. He felt a bit bad about taking his anger out on Naruto, but not bad enough to open the door again. The kid had to learn about disappointment.

His eyes rested on the coffee table in his apartment. It was littered with sake bottles. He had bought them before he left so he had felt no remorse at drinking them all in one night. That was what had allowed him to do it, really. Normally he didn't drink like that. It was expensive.

His eyes fell to an ashtray on the table. He had _smoked?_ He didn't remember that. He must have been feeling truly crappy after a few drinks.

One of the open bottles on the table had 100 proof alcohol content. He winced. It was half-empty. No wonder he felt like shit. He grabbed a couple of the bottles and retreated to his kitchen, where he threw the empty ones away and put the half-full ones back on the shelf. He made several trips. Finally all that was left to find were the cigarettes. He hadn't remembered smoking, so he had no idea where they would be. He looked around his apartment. Finally, sighing in defeat he retreated onto his balcony to rest in the shade and get a breath of fresh air.

He slid the door shut and turned around. On the small glass table in the corner of his balcony was the box of cigarettes. He picked it up. The box was empty. _Damn… _he sighed to himself_, Last night was bad for my health._

He rubbed his head and contemplated just throwing the box off of the porch in anger, before quietly turning and going back inside to throw them away. He looked around at his kitchen in despair, trying to think of something to do that wouldn't hurt his headache even more. Finally he decided.

He pulled a washcloth out from one of the cabinets in the kitchen and got it wet with the coldest water that would run out of the faucet. He then folded it in half and wrung it out a bit so it only dripped a little when suspended in the air. Then he walked back to his room and collapsed on his bed, carefully placing the wet washcloth on his forehead, and went to sleep.

* * *

Sakura awoke in an unfamiliar place for what seemed like the umpteenth time in the past couple of days. This time she was not cold. Instead, she was pleasantly warm and she realized it had something to do with the blanket covering her body. She looked at her surroundings.

She was alone in a small room. A large Plexiglas window looked out a dark hallway and into another lit room. In the room was a man with dirty brown hair. He was kneeling on the floor and it looked like he was talking rapidly. Sweat was visibly rolling off of his head. Suddenly, from the area she couldn't see through her window a foot shot out and kicked him in the stomach. The man doubled over and his mouth opened as though he were screaming at the top of his lungs. All she could hear was a slight hum, vibrating through her window and into her room. She felt sick and looked away, turning her attention to her room and ignoring the man and his captor.

She looked around and saw that she was in a wooden-paneled room. The walls and ceiling and floor were dark wood, slightly dirty from what she presumed was the previous inhabitant. There were two doors, one leading to the hallway which was, presumably, locked and another which, when she got up and tried it, led to a bathroom.

The bathroom was small but not uncomfortable, and quite accommodating. Everything was paneled in the same kind of wood. The shower was medium sized and took up about a third of the room. A small sink stood over some cabinets and a toilet was next to that. There were two hooks on the wall where wet towels could be hung and a large, full-length mirror was attached to the back of the door. _This is the Hilton of all prison cells,_ she thought to herself, w_hy am I here?_

She looked in the mirror, maybe something about the way she looked…? She wished she hadn't looked. Her hair was matted with blood. The red and pink made her look like some kind of Valentine's Day card gone wrong and the rest of her body didn't look much better. Her skin was paler than usual from the two extensive healings she had preformed and from the travel. Not to mention the strain of being kidnapped. Twice.

She turned around and looked at the shower. It looked like she had no other choice but to take one. Maybe there would be some extra clothing somewhere in the room. She opened the door and started looking closer at her room. Against the wall of the bathroom was a bookshelf and a small chair at a desk. At the foot of the bed was a large, box-like thing, which, upon closer inspection, had four drawers.

She opened the top drawer on the left to find lots of clean shirts in dark colors and a couple in light colors. She selected a black tank-top with thick straps and closed the drawer. The drawer beneath that held pants and shorts, from black ninja-wear to civilian wear like jeans. She had never worn jeans and her curiosity about the strange, popular cloth probed her to grab a pair of them. They were long and dark-washed. Simple jeans for her first try.

The top drawer on the right held lingerie and, somewhat embarrassed, she grabbed a matching black pair. They didn't have much lace, and that suited her fine. Somewhere in the back of her mind she remembered Hidan's comments about her back undergarments but she pushed that out of her mind. She was curious about what was in the bottom drawer of the dresser.

She opened the drawer to find formal wear. Dresses and skirts in rich dark colors. Silks and satins like she had only dreamed of touching before lay right before her eyes. She had to force herself to not look at the drawer full of beautiful clothing. She slammed it shut. When she did so something else caught her eye under the dresser. She kneeled down on the floor to get a closer look.

Shoes. Heels and flip-flops and boots. They were all there. More shoes than she had ever owned before. They were all a practical black, except for two, a silver pair of heels that looked like Cinderella had worn them to the ball and a pair of white and red flip-flops that seemed to match the cloaks the Akatsuki wore. It struck her that it was weird that everything was in her size, but she didn't care.

She pulled out a pair of black stiletto heels. They were designer. She almost fell over herself admiring the beautiful shoes. At that moment, nothing else existed to her. She had never owned a pair of shoes like this. The heels were bout 12 cm long and solid steel covered in shiny black leather. The toes were rounded slightly and there were two buckles by the ankle. She didn't know if she would be able to walk in them. Just in case she couldn't she pulled out a pair of black satin flats that she knew would be fine.

She carried the clothing to the bathroom where she placed it on the rim of the sink before turning on the water. She dug around in the cabinets to see if there was shampoo, conditioner, soap and a razor. She found them easily. They were rose scented and she felt like a little girl smelling them. She couldn't help it; she felt so… at ease. All thoughts of her imprisonment were gone as she stepped under the warm water of the shower. She was locked in a room, but the room was heaven.

* * *

**A/N: ****Please Read and Review! This is my first story so any kind of comment would be welcome. Constructive criticism is much appreciated. Thank you to all of you who reviewed the last chapter.**

**Nadir91: Thank you for telling me! I know I write in a very stylized manner. Is it very annoying? If it is, I would be happy to try and fix it, if not it would be super easy for me to keep writing this way. Thank you so much for your time!**

**Thank you so much to everyone else who reviewed. They made me really happy, your guys' encouragement to keep writing helped stave off some of my writer's block!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I own nothing except the order these words are placed on the page.**

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* * *

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**Fideism**

_Fideism is a theory, which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths. The word fideism comes from fides, the Latin word for faith, and literally means faith-ism._

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* * *

_

Sakura stepped out of the shower and closed the door. She was so relaxed. _It's almost like a trip to the spa._ The thought made her giggle inwardly._ I'm captive in the Akatsuki fortress and all I can do is relax. It's like reverse psychology or something. What next? Do I get a five-course meal?_ This time she couldn't help but laugh out loud.

She grabbed her bra and panties off the rim of the sink and slid them on. She was surprised to notice that they looked good on her, but she let it go as her hands fell on the jeans. She had never worn jeans before.

The rough fabric was comfortable as she slid it over her legs. She got it past her knees and up her thighs where the denim caught on her ass. _It's not _that_ big, is it?_ She pulled harder and the jeans came up then she zipped up the front and did the button. She had never seen her form streamlined like this before. She felt… sexy. The jeans emphasized the little hip she had and she moved her hand over it appreciatively. She realized that she was acting like a child and pulled the tank top off of the counter and onto her body.

The neckline of the top fell below her bra and she self-consciously pulled it up over her little breasts and down in the back. She looked at herself again. Her small feet stuck out from the bottom of her new jeans and she thought, for a second, that they were actually cute, instead of clumsy, ugly, pink things with five small appendages. The heat of the shower had restored some rosiness to her cheeks and she felt pleased about her appearance. She quickly dried her hair and arranged it.

She looked good. Really good. And she smelled awesome. She sniffed. Amazing. Addicting. She was getting carried away. She forcibly stopped the thought process and focused on the heels. The beautiful, magnificent heels. She placed one hand on the counter while she slipped the first one on. She almost fell over trying to buckle it.

The second shoe was easier and she was surprised to find that she could actually stand in them. She smiled a big, genuine smile of triumph. The shoes fit. She took one last look in the mirror before opening the door to the rest of her little room. She had to look at her feet to keep from stumbling.

"Getting a bit comfortable, aren't we?"

Sakura's head shot up.

* * *

On his third day back in Konoha, Naruto didn't get up in the morning. He missed Sakura-chan. Jiraiya-sensei was hung over yesterday and wouldn't talk to him. All of his class-mates from The Academy were out on long-term missions and wouldn't be back until after Sakura-chan. She would be back the day after next, but he couldn't wait that long. It seemed like forever.

He sat up in bed. He hated waiting. His blonde hair fell at all angles across his face without his headband. It was kind of annoying, but he ignored it. He wondered if Sakura was walking faster because he might be home when she got here. He smiled at the thought.

Naruto let his body fall limply back on the sheets. _Ugh… I should get up and train._ That thought led him to push the blankets off of himself and sit up again. He grabbed his headband off of the table next to his bed and put it on. Then, using all of his willpower he pushed himself off of the bed and onto the floor. He stood up to his full height and walked over to the dresser on the far side of the room. He grabbed one of the clean outfits and put it on. He then sat down on the edge of his bed to put on his shoes.

He fell back in the sheets. _I'm tired… _He rolled into the bed so that he was in a normal sleeping position. He slowly allowed himself to drift off.

He dreamed of chasing Sasuke through a huge, green forest. Sakura was with him, encouraging him to do well. He could do it. He caught up with Sasuke and he reached out to grab him, he looked at Sakura in triumph. Sakura wasn't there. He looked at Sasuke. He was holding on to a large purple snake. He screamed and closed his eyes. When they opened he was on a plateau. Wind blew sand through his hair and into his eyes. He blinked to clear them.

A hand was on his shoulder, shaking him. He kicked and screamed. All he could see in the dream were two red eyes. They were staring at him over the vast plateau.

His head shot up. He looked around his room. It was 11:00 PM. He had slept through the whole day. He wasn't tired anymore.

* * *

Hidan was in front of her, holding her pack. He dropped it on her bed casually.

"You know, that outfit really doesn't suit a ninja," he snickered.

Sakura blushed intensely. She hoped that he couldn't see it at this distance. The two meters give or take between them probably wasn't enough though.

"Well… am I supposed to act like a ninja here?"

"Good point," he smiled, "that'll just get you fucking killed." Sakura was taken aback by his language. Was he joking? Her mind flitted back to the man across the hall she had seen earlier. Her eyes moved to gaze in that direction. He followed her gaze. "There's no one there little girl. Hearing things again?" He snickered.

"No, I- what happened to the man in the other room?" She tried to collect her thoughts.

"That is none of your concern" Hidan gave a predatory grin.

Sakura gulped, "I see you have my bag," she looked at it.

Hidan glanced at it, "Yeah, orders were to get you your damn medical supplies."

"Umm… thanks?" _Should I really be thanking him?_ _This situation is so… awkward…_

"Guess what else we found little girl?" He grinned wider than before.

"Uh… what?"

"Your little friend. Shizanu." He looked like a feral dog who had just gotten a treat.

"Shizune?"

"_That's _the one! You Konoha ninja don't put up much of a fight."

"Is she okay? What happened? Leave her alone you asshole! She didn't do anything!" Hidan looked almost shocked at the outburst.

"Calm down girlie. She's not dead." Sakura sighed, "She's in the same room as you, next door."

"She'll be okay?" Sakura was almost allowing herself to be hopeful.

"Hai, hai. We're not allowed to touch either medic girl with 'intent to harm'" He sounded a bit annoyed, "Leader-sama's orders."

"Umm… give him my regards?" she suggested cautiously.

This time he laughed, "Maybe you'll live to give them yourself, but first it's time to come up to the house. You're cooking dinner tonight girlie."

"You sure laugh a lot for a damn criminal…" she mumbled to herself as he shooed her briskly out the door and through the hallway. On her way past she glanced into Shizune's dark room. She could just make out the lump on the bed she figured to be Shizune. She stumbled a bit in her stilettos trying to walk one way and look another.

The stairs to 'the house' were steep and dark and a bit… wet…

_eww,_ she thought, _this 'house' is really gross…_

_

* * *

_

Tsunade and Jiraiya were a bit perturbed to find that Naruto was in his locked house that night. They knocked on the door but there was no response. Dinner would have to do without the boy today. Since meeting with Naruto was the purpose for dinner, they called it off. Maybe he would be answering his door tomorrow.

Jiraiya couldn't help but feel a pang of responsibility for the boy's locked-in state. Maybe if he had gone to eat lunch with him yesterday Naruto wouldn't have locked himself in. He couldn't help feel a bit of anxiety about being out alone with Tsunade again. He quickly excused himself.

Tsunade wished Sakura were here. She would find some creative way to get the boy out of his house and out to dinner, no matter how depressed he was. He would do anything for Sakura. That was one of his major downfalls. She turned around to find that Jiraiya had gone. She was all alone. _So much for a nice evening_. She walked off toward her house. She would see Sakura soon enough, and then Naruto would cheer up and come eat with them.

The truth was, she missed her apprentice as well. She twirled some of her long blonde hair in her fingers. She wished Shizune were back. She needed someone to do her paperwork.

Tsunade pulled out her wallet and looked through the bills. _Barely enough to eat with,_ she thought dryly. The job of Hokage was all honor and no pay. And she wasn't allowed to gamble. She missed gambling. The gambling world probably missed her too. Probably.

Tsunade sighed and headed home. No one there missed her. The village had paid her debts and no one missed just one more compulsive gambler with a reputation for loosing. She was just one of many. It was sad, now that she thought about it. She had built her entire life on a love that no one cared about. She had lived for something, and it gave nothing back.

Stupid her. She stepped into her home, saddled with the responsibility of a nation and full of the emotions of a child. She had never been good enough to be Hokage. Or maybe she hadn't been bad enough. She didn't know. It struck her that she didn't really know much at all. She laughed bitterly.

* * *

Sakura was a pretty decent cook. Frying the noodles hadn't taken very long. They smelled really good. It hadn't taken her long to figure out that she had no idea how many people were eating. She opened the door to the room Hidan had walked into. In it was a large rectangular table with chairs randomly and haphazardly surrounding it. Sake was on the table and being poured and drank. Two bottles were already empty. Only one person was actively drinking the sake.

Sakura gulped nervously, trying to get a hold on herself. Three pairs of dark eyes were looking at her. "Ano…" she paused nervously. When no one moved she cautiously pressed on, "How many umm… people are eating?" She was addressing Hidan but a blonde person, with a ponytail propped on top of their head and electric blue eyes (or so she assumed, she could only see one of them), spoke up.

"Six." His blue eye shot through her and into the kitchen, signaling that that was all she was going to get. Sakura hurried out to the sound of Hidan trying to control his laughter.

Placing the noodles on the table had been hard too. She grabbed six plates and pairs of chopsticks before pushing past the door into the dining room. This time, six pairs of eyes stared at the presumed intruder.

"Umm…" she said nervously, "Here's your dinner," She put the plates on the table and hurried back to the kitchen to get the food. A few seconds later she came out with two large bowls of fried noodles. She placed them in the middle of the table, careful not to make eye contact with the men or to look closely at them. All she could see were the red and black clouds on their shapeless cloaks. She went back in again to get a large plate of meat and vegetables. She placed it between the two bowls of noodles on the table.

Feeling satisfied, she moved to leave the room.

"Not so fast little girl." She turned around to see Hidan addressing her.

"Hai?" She turned around and tried to give them as little reason to kill her as she could.

"Where are you going hn?" It was the blonde man.

"Shut up Deidara." Hidan spat out, "Go do your hair, it's falling out." He snickered as Deidara ran his fingers through his hair self-consciously.

"Sasori, would you pull up a chair for the girl?" Kakuzu asked carefully.

A chair shot from across the room to right in between Hidan and the huge blue man who was still drinking sake. To get there, she would have to walk around the room. It took all of her willpower to take the first step towards the criminals sitting in front of her. They had not touched the food. She would have been offended if she didn't know they were all just focused on Hidan's systematic breakdown of her stable mentality.

She finally reached the chair and sat down. It took her a bit to look up from the table. Suddenly she realized that she was excruciatingly hungry. She hadn't eaten anything substantial since the beginning of her mission, which, according to her calculations, was about eight days ago.

She timidly grabbed a plate and a pair of chopsticks before helping herself to a heaping plate of noodles. She grabbed a ton of meat and then some vegetables. No one else had moved. She looked around suspiciously. They were all staring at her. "Umm… Itadakimasu?" she said carefully, hoping that she wasn't doing anything wrong, and took a bite.

When the tips of the chopsticks left her moth it seemed as though a spell had been broken. All the members started moving quickly to get to their food. The blue man, surprisingly, was not the slowest of the group and it was left to Deidara to go and get an extra plate and pair of chopsticks, having been the only person not to receive any.

"So, girl," Kisme said between bites, "What do they call you?" It took Sakura a moment to realize the fish-man had been talking to her.

He seemed friendly enough for a psychotic killer so she replied, "Haruno Sakura." Hidan almost choked on the noodles he had just placed in his mouth oh-so-carefully. The blue man's smirk was wider than any she had previously seen and one look at his teeth sent shivers down his spine. He had the teeth of a great white shark. Literally. Extra rows and everything.

"Ne, Kisame, her name is _Sakura_" Hidan put his arm around the small girl and poked the blue man's arm.

"Heh, its funny because-" The shark man started.

"We already know…" said Sasori. The small, red haired man had not touched any of the food he had put onto his plate.

"Umm…" said Sakura nervously to the red-head, "is it not good?" she looked at his food then back at him. He ignored the timid inquiry into his eating habits and looked at Kisame, who was obviously starting to feel the effects of the sake.

"Sasori," he slurred, "the lady asked you a question." His grin as somewhat feral at this point.

"I am aware of that, Kisame," he replied evenly.

"Answer it." His grin added. She got the sense that Kisame and Sasori did not like each other.

"I do not have an answer." Sakura's eyes widened in surprise.

"Puppet monster," Kisame mutters under his breath, "I hate dolls."

"My sense of hearing remains intact, Kisame-_san_" he practically hissed.

Kisame grinned and grabbed his full cup of sake, "I know," he said. He tipped the cup back in one quick motion of his wrist and downed the liquid in the glass. This movement seemed to tip Sasori over the edge and he stood up, placing his hands on the table. Instead of the normal sound that human flesh would make, there was a muffled hollow sound. It made the hair on the back of her neck stand up just a bit.

"Sasori-dana!" Deidara practically shouted, lacking the tact for the situation at hand. Kisame stood to meet Sasori's challenge.

"Kisame." A voice from across the table, the single seemed to make the argument null and void, Kisame sat down and Sasori, after a pause, followed suit. She had been avoiding and ignoring the presences of Kakuzu and the other occupant of the table for the entire meal. Now, she was curious to the somewhat familiar sound and turned to meet a pair of crimson eyes. Sakura screamed.

* * *

Kabuto's glasses flashed as he turned toward the sound of the disturbance, Sasuke had never practiced his morally questionable interrogation methods in the middle of the underground compound. He usually did it deep in the dungeons so that he did not disturb the rest of the other occupants of the place, many of whom, slept during the day. It had been all that was left of his compassion.

Kabuto hated the boy, and secretly hoped that his Orochimaru-sama would recover from his last transfer more quickly so that the boy could be disposed of. As it happened, it was taking longer than expected for Orochimaru to recover. It probably had a lot to do with the sealing of his arms. Kabuto pushed his glasses up his nose in annoyance. What a nuisance.

Another scream shot through the compound. Clatter was heard as several occupants of other rooms in the building stumbled from their slumber and into the halls, searching for the noise that had brought them from their slumber.

Kabuto let the stress he was feeling roll off of himself in waves, until his senses were muffled and dim. He let his eyes and hands work to their full potential. His chakra scalpel was in a crucial place in his patient's body, one wrong move could kill the small girl.

A scream tore through his mental shelter and he almost jumped. He scowled in annoyance. The girl would have to wait. He wiped his hands of blood and pulled off his bloody surgeon coat. Perhaps he should eat something.

Kabuto had never had much of an appetite, because of thins he usually skipped meals when he wasn't particularly hungry, which was almost always. In the past three years he had been busy a lot. It had caused him to loose the last of his visible weight. He was more of a scary stick figure than a person at the moment. He felt it suited him, but as a doctor, he realized that he would die if he did not eat regularly.

Kabuto did not wish to die yet. He climbed the four stairs that separated the floor of his 'hospital' from the rest of the compound. The kitchen was far away, and he would probably have to get around the source of the wretched screaming. He steeled himself against the noise again as he opened the door at the top of the stairs.

Three steps into the hallway, a mangled scream ripped through the compound, causing his bones to ache. It was terminated before it was complete. Kabuto supposed that the annoyance was over, for now. He hoped the Uchiha boy did not make it a habit.

* * *

Sakura found herself in the scream and tripped, her mental state teetering over an edge she had not yet crossed. Sasuke was here. He was here. He hadn't said anything. She knew it was sasuke. She had never seen eyes like those other than his. They were so… red. Terrifying. She remembered times she had seen them before. Those times were not good memories.

She felt her body loosing oxygen. She needed to breathe. She needed to open her eyes. She took stock of her position. _Do not meet Sasuke's eyes._ She was cured in a ball, on top of her chair, hands tangled in her long pink hair and gripping the rims of her ears, trying to block out the sound of her own pumping blood.

This wasn't helping. She decided that maybe it was safe to stop screaming now. She cut the noise off and breathed in deeply, pulling in the life-giving air her body desired. Nothing had felt so beautiful in a long time. A tear ran out of her eye and fell onto the seat of the chair she had been sitting in. It had burned its way through her skin and if she hadn't thought it irrational, she would have believed it was liquid fire, and had left a visible, tangible, irreversible scar on her pale face.

She slowly removed her hands from her ears and pulled her fingertips through her hair, trying to undo the tangles she had caused when she had scrunched it up. She had heard that there were studies done on the calming effect of lightly pulling your hair. That was against the point. She let her hands fall to her sides.

Sakura still hadn't opened her eyes. She slowly let her green orbs drift open and turn on the source of her ultimate torment. _Sasuke._

"Sasuke" she hissed, echoing her thoughts, "Ill kill you." Her rage was too intense to notice the surprised look on the faces of all of the men in the room at the mention of the Uchiha child. Her fist came up above her head and slammed onto the table. At first, the men looked on in slight amusement at watching the futile attempts at rage by the small girl.

The table stood still for a minute then it splintered. Shards of table collapsed everywhere. Caught off guard, the object of Sakura's hate was surprised to find himself locked in battle with a tiny pink-haired woman wielding nothing but a large, sharp-looking splinter.

"I hate you Sasuke," hot red tears ran down her soft face as she plunged the fragment of a table into his neck. 'Sasuke' puffed out of existence. _Shadow clone?_ Sakura turned on the room just quick enough to see several men closing in on her before they hit, sending her flying into a wall.

Rde eyes appeared before her swimming vision and swirled around. She was sobbing. "Stop it Sasuke, go away," she moaned, before giving in to the blackness that was unconsciousness. She had failed and Naruto had failed. They would never bring Sasuke back.

* * *

On the day before Sakura was to return, Naruto received an unexpected houseguest. Hyuuga Hinata had never been a super close friend to him, due to her shyness in the academy and to not being assigned to the same team at graduation. She had knocked on his door at 1:00 sharp, he had just gotten out of the shower and gotten dressed. His hair was still wet.

He answered the door wearing just his black undershirt and his pants. Hinata's face had lit up like a fire, but he didn't notice. She pushed her fingers together nervously when he asked he how she had been.

"Good… umm… I missed you while you were gone…" she nervously put the words into the air, hoping against hope that he would catch her meaning and tell her the same thing.

"Yeah, I was gone for a long time, ne?" he smiled at her, "I just woke up… do you want to come in and eat something?"

Her blush turned ten shades darker than it had been before, "Hai… that… would be really nice," Hinata smiled through her blush and stepped past Naruto, who was holding the door for her.

"I'm not a great cook, but I have plenty of ramen here, is that cool?" Naruto inquired gently, he didn't know Hinata very well, she seemed a bit above instant noodles though. "Or you could help me cook something?"

Hinata blushed, "It would be fun… either way" she was indecisive, he would have to remember that so that he didn't put her in hard positions later.

"Well… let's cook!" He smiled, "I haven't had real food in a long time,"

Hinata's eyes lit up at the prospect of cooking something with Naruto, it was something a couple would do. "Umm… what do you like to eat Naruto-kun?" It helped that she was an excellent cook. It helped a whole lot.

Four hours later, Hinata would still be there, just finishing making dinner with Naruto, she was beyond excited for the day.

* * *

When Sakura came-to she was back in her cell. Someone had possessed the audacity to have removed her shoes from her feet before lying her on the bed. She almost screamed in frustration. What a joke. She couldn't kill Sasuke. Of course he would be using a clone.

She sighed in frustration and flexed her fingers. The small appendages were slightly sore from slamming down on the table, but nothing was visibly wrong with them. She sighed in relief, she hated hurting herself.

She soon noticed that there was a pair of eyes staring at her through her Plexiglas window. She looked into them. The crimson pigments associated with the Uchiha bloodline looked back at her. She fought the urge to scream at them. Sasuke had grown up quite a bit, she thought dreamily as she looked at him.

She noted the lines under his eyes and how his hair had gotten longer. Somewhere in the back of her mind she worried if he was sleeping well, he never had when they had been teammates. Something was really different about him. She couldn't put her finger on it.

She looked him over. Was he sick? He had certainly gotten taller. And thinner… Her eyes widened at her realization, 'Sasuke' was wearing an Akatsuki cloak, and no Uchiha symbol. He was still looking at her.

"Uchiha… Itachi…" she let the words roll off of her tongue. They were strangely without the hate that usually accompanied such a name in Konoha. They seemed defeated. A tear rolled down her cheek, and then another. She looked at him again to be sure. She was right. The finality at having not found Sasuke made her want to kill herself rather than face the embarrassment at having been so wrong.

His crimson eyes took in all of it, even the dejected way she had said his name. It seemed that she was beyond caring about his previous track record in Konoha. Or maybe she felt that she couldn't do anything about it.

He didn't care. She wished him no ill will. He moved to put his hand on the door handle and let himself in. She watched his movements carefully. A sound from the end of the hallway caused him to curse inwardly, he shouldn't be here anymore. He slowly let his form dissolve into a puff of black smoke.

She could hear the steps now, someone was coming into the hallway where Itachi had just been standing. She felt weird calling him Itachi, it was so… informal. She tried out other ways to call him in her head. Not one seemed right. Konoha nins used the name Itachi rather than Uchiha Itachi, and there were no titles given to people like him. She guessed that she would have to see how things went. She didn't want to give him a reason to hurt her.

The footsteps were almost at her room now. She looked for the source cautiously, hoping that it was someone she was already familiar with. Hidan stepped into the hallway in front of her panel of Plexiglas. She sighed in relief. Hidan was familiar, and safe… in a way. He didn't look safe, he didn't act safe, and he didn't give her the impression that he wouldn't kill her if he had the chance. He was just safe.

Hidan seemed surprised to find that she was awake. He opened the door confidently.

"That was some stunt you pulled, girlie." He smirked and ran his hand through his slicked-back silver hair.

"I thought he was someone else… otherwise I-"

Hidan cut her off, "You destroyed our table," he said, as though it were a comment like, the sky is blue or flowers smell like perfume. Or did perfume smell like flowers? Sakura's mind trailed off a bit and then snapped back on track.

"Yeah… sorry, that was unladylike of me." She pushed the bangs on the right side of her face behind her ear.

"Heh, unladylike…" he smirked again, "You do know that your Sasuke isn't here, right?" he looked at her critically.

"Itachi." She said carefully, "I attacked Uchiha Itachi."

"Tactful," he said sarcastically. She laughed. Hidan reached out his open palm toward her, "but you almost had him" Sakura stared baffled at his hand before shyly reaching hers out and gently shaking it. He smiled at her. She realized that she was fraternizing with the enemy and let go quickly before wiping the smile off of her face.

He realized that a boundary had been crossed as well and drew his hand back to his side. He turned on his heel and left, not glancing back when he closed the door. Sakura let her torso fall back on the bed.

She resolved that she should not be this okay with the men in the organization. Akatsuki was evil. They were all murderers and warmongers. They were fundamentally bad. They couldn't be good. Everything there as about them that was 'nice' and 'sane' was fake. They were lies. She knew it.

* * *

**A/N: ****Please Read and Review! This is my first story so any kind of comment would be welcome. Constructive criticism is much appreciated. Thank you to all of you who reviewed the last chapter. Your reviews keep me alive and writing!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I own nothing except the order these words are placed on the page.**

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**Fideism**

_Fideism is a theory, which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths. The word fideism comes from fides, the Latin word for faith, and literally means faith-ism._

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* * *

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Hinata closed thee door to Naruto's apartment. She had been there from 1:00 to 7:45. It had been an amazing day. After three hours or so she had finally opened up and talked o him normally, she was so proud of herself. She had never been that brave to him in her entire life.

She readjusted her sweatshirt, it had gotten hot inside Naruto's apartment and she had been forced to take it off, much to her embarrassment. Naruto had barely commented on it, he was too concentrated on stirring the ingredients for the dough together, she had taught him how to make bread in the same style as her mother. It was something very special to her, but she didn't tell him that.

He had been really surprised to see her, it turned out he had thought that none of his old classmates would be around until after Sakura got home from her mission. Hinata had told him the truth, that she and her team had finished their mission a bit early, but had only come home because they had heard he had returned. He seemed so thrilled that he couldn't stop smiling for the rest of the night, it made her happy. The food had also made her happy.

Cooking was second nature to the small Hyuuga Heiress. When she had been deemed unsuitable to be the heir to the clan she had spent a lot of time in the kitchen with "the help". She liked them better than her family. Neji was still horrible to her. She hated going home and facing them.

While her mind was on that she realized that she had not told her family where she was going. Being at Naruto's house all day was a bit… improper. She pulled at her sweatshirt again and started walking faster. She wondered if she could lie and say she had been with Tenten. She doubted it. She was going to be in trouble. She hoped that nobody would be too hard on her for it. She knew they would.

She decided that she was in too good of a mood to be yelled at this very moment. She slowed down and looked where she was going. She was close to the compound, but her thoughts led her down a side street that pointed away from home. She looked around a bit self-consciously, being out alone wasn't something she got to do much, even as a ninja.

On her team she was, admittedly, the weak link. People, she guessed, associated her with Sakura, who was the poster child for the weakest member of a team. Hinata couldn't help but feel bad for the girl. As a ninja, Sakura wasn't perfect, but she had no crippling faults. It was mostly the comparison to Sasuke and Naruto. They were the most prodigious children of the village. At only 12 Sasuke and Naruto had been powerful enough to participate fully in the Sound Attack on the village. Sakura had been there to, it turned out, but no one remembered.

Hinata wasn't as good as Sakura at most things, but she had the Hyuuga bloodline to protect her. Sakura was from a civilian family, there was no fallback there. Hinata hoped that Sakura didn't take it too hard when people didn't notice her like they did her teammates, but knowing Sakura, she probably did, somewhere.

Hinata looked up from her thoughts when she stepped onto the street and into the light. She was on a bustling, lively road through the city. Doors to clubs she had never heard of, not that she knew many, were open and bass-heavy music was pouring out of them onto the street. She felt her heartbeat synchronize with the sounds closest to her and almost panicked a bit as it thundered in her chest, then, realizing that she wasn't having a sudden, fatal heart-attack, she found that she liked the feeling.

She gazed at the people going into the clubs longingly. Girls in heels with brightly colored dresses and thick makeup paraded around like it was natural. She had never owned anything like the things those girls wore. She looked down at herself. Although she wasn't much younger than the women on the streets she knew that she was very different. Her worn greyish sweatshirt was nothing like the emerald silk of the dress on the woman who just walked past her, she looked on enviously as a man pulled a red velvet rope away from a door so that she could get in, bypassing an entire line of annoyed looking people. She wanted to be that girl.

Shopping wasn't something she had the luxury of doing on her own. She knew that her father would not approve of the Hyuuga Heiress wearing a tiny, silky, western-styled dress. A girl walked past in all black wish purple rhinestones at her low neckline. Her father would say it was "indecent" but Hinata looked at it like it was absolute freedom.

She turned around slowly, back to where she had come from, back toward the compound. She turned briefly to look back when she could no longer feel the bass pounding in her veins to make sure the magical world of glamour had really existed. Beautiful people paraded themselves across the alleyway entrance, not noticing the small girl who was watching them so intently. Hinata finally dragged her eyes away, silently promising herself that she would be there, someday, with a beautiful dress to parade along wit the other beautiful people.

Returning home was harder than it had been when she was too young to wander.

* * *

_Sakura-chan will be home today,_ thought Naruto cheerfully. She could be home any minute. He was pacing the several meters in front of the gate to Konoha, his hands going fron his hair, to clasped behind his back, to clasped in front of him to his weapons pouch. He was too excited to see Sakura to realize that he was in the wrong place. It was 3:00 A.M. like it should be, but Naruto had forgotten to be at the hospital.

By 4:00 he was worried. The nurse had said that she would be home in time for her shift at 3:00 and he didn't know why she hadn't come in. Maybe she had been early and he had missed her. He ran his hand through his hair and rubbed it to change the feeling at the roots. Satisfied that it was moved sufficiently, he took off in the direction of the hospital to see her. Maybe she just didn't know that he was home. At the hospital he talked to the receptionist again. She was a bit angry at Sakura's tardiness, but she said that the hospital could handle things without her for now. She just hoped that Sakura would be back within 24 hours, because there were some A-rank missions due in, and some of the teams were bound to have injuries.

Naruto was glad to hear that she was needed here but he was disappointed that Sakura was late. He resolved to wait for her at the gate, hoping that maybe she had tagged along with another team to help them on her way in, and was late because she was doing her job or something like that. He didn't really know what medic-nin did.

He thought a little about how She could have been a big help on ealier missions if the had known she was a medic when Team 7 was still together. Sasuke could have really used a medic when Haku had almost killed him on the bridge. And he could have used her help when Sasuke had…

Naruto allowed his mind to go numb and trail off, he didn't like thinking about that time in the valley of the end. He was amazed that he had been able to use the kyubi's power at the time, not that he had known what it was then. Had he been able to control it further, he would have efeate Sasuke. For sure. He blanked out. He hated that day.

Now he was stronger. Strong enough to be the Hokage. Strong enough to protect Sakura from anything and everything. Strong enough to bring Sasuke back. He knew it. So now all he needed was Sakura to come back, and he would be ready to take on the world. With this in mind, he planted his feet at the front gate of Konoha and decided that he would be there until Sakura arrived, even if it wasn't until tomorrow.

Sakura dog-eared the page in her book and looked up. For the fourth time in so many days, Uchiha Itachi was standing outside her window, stairing at her. She had no idea how long he had been there this time. His crimson eyes gazed at her and seemed to perpetuate the feeling of wonder she had when she gazed at him. She wished she had blinds on her window. Nothing said "wake up!" like a psychopathic murderer staring into your living space.

Last time she had caught him staring at her she had made up her mind to confront him about it, but just as she locked eyes with him her body became unable to move. _Shit. _She thought, almost dejectedly, _I can't believe that I forgot about his goddamn special eyes._ She backed her gaze with as much hostile intent as she could. As she gazed on in horror, his eyes started to spiral into the Mangekyo. The colors of her world switched as her small stomach flip-flopped.

Itachi appeared in front of her in her mind. She was sitting in the same position as she had been on her bed, but she was now on a wooden bench outside somewhere. She quietly told herself that it was all in her head. None of this was real.

"It is very real kunoichi." Itachi's velvety-smooth voice right here. He gently tapped the side of her head, just past her hairline, "right here," he removed his hand. She blinked at the contact, she hadn't been expecting him to… touch her. She didn't move at all. She realized that he wasn't as tall as she had expected him to be, with his reputation. It made sense, he was a ninja, he had to be relatively small. He was probably the perfect size for a ninja.

Itachi's eyes didn't shift from her as he slowly sat down on a char she had not noticed before. She assumed that this was the world Kakashi had described to her, the one where Itachi controlled everything, including the time. In all likelihood, no time had passed back in the real world, where her body was. _This is just an elaborate genjitsu,_ she told herself calmly, nothing that happens here is real, _nothing is real._

"You can talk Sakura, none of your movement is restricted" Itachi's statement seemed to knock her out of her reverie. She moved into a sitting position, although she kept her body as far from his as she could. Just because it wasn't real didn't mean it didn't _feel_ real. His fce contorted at the edges just a bit, hinting that maybe he thought it was funny enough to consider smirking at her. It was so infuriating that, for a moment, Sakura forgot to be afraid of the killer.

"Don't look at me like that, asshole," she spat, "You're just like your damn little brother." Itachi found that he was taken aback by the girl's attitude towards Sasuke,

"You hate my brother," he said it as a statement, but she sensed the question in it.

"I do." She refused to answer cryptically concealed questions. If he was curious enough, he would just ask her. He knew that she was being stubborn, but he figured that this was what he got for assaulting her instead of just walking in and confronting her about it.

He sighed and paused, hoping that she would just go on, when he finally decided that she wouldn't, he spoke again, "Why?"

"Why what?" _**Yeah girl!**_ Sakura didn't question the random voice, it had appeard before when no one was there, and she didn't want to look stupid looking for it again.

He sighed again at her childishness, he guessed that she saw it as retaliation, somewhere in her small, twisted, mind. He didn't like it. "Why do you hate my little brother, Haruno Sakura?" His more formal question seemed to appease her and he confidently met her carefully masked eyes.

"He left." She stated flatly. "Your little brother left me and Naruto alone, after we gave everything to him. And now he's going to die, Orochimaru is going to kill him and hes such an idiot. He tried to kill Naruto and he never cared. We cared so much about him." She looked down, and under her breath muttered, "he wouldn't even take me with him…"

Itachi didn't mind much that her response was a congealed mess of emotion. He had not allowed himself to feel anything in a long time and he didn't feel malicious enough to deny the girl a moment to collect herself from what was clearly a traumatic event. He wondered when he had gone so soft for a moment before deciding that it was perfectly logical. She would not respond to further questioning if she was emotionally compromised.

When it looked as though sakura was no longer pining over her lost teammate, Itachi questioned her again.

"So you hate him?" his red eyes poured into her small body, as he asked the question, he soon turned away, seemingly bored by her lack of response. The slight bobbing movement of her head answered his question.

_Of course I hate him, baka, _Sakura thought. His rejection had made her bitter over the years, even though she had tried not to be. _**Shut the fuck up. You're a big girl, suck it up. **_

"You want to kill him?" Itachi's voice stopped the panic that was about to set in at hearing voices in her head again.

"Clearly." Her flat tone made it seem pretty final. _If I can get my hands on him before that snake-freak._

"You are a very skilled ninja." Itachi sated, seeming to come from another place altogether. Sakura blushed, startled. Nobody had ever even hinted that she was talented, now, someone who she considered an enemy and a danger was complimenting her when he should not. She realized also, that Uchiha Itachi probably did not compliment people when he did not mean it. She was slightly embarrassed, but she was honored.

"Thank you," she replied politely, "Your reputation would seem to say the same for you," she could not judge him based on their short battle, he had barely moved the whole time.

He nodded his head in acknowledgement.

_**Yeah girl! He's actually fucking responding to us!**_Sakura's eyes shot open and she self-consciously looked around, pretending to inspect her surroundings. They were in a big, empty space, there was nowhere for anyone to hide. _Us?_ _Who are we?_ _**I'm you, you're me, duh. Baka. Have you really forgotten me?**__Um… yes? __**This is not the time, pay attention to Itachi.**_She turned her attention outward again, trying to forget about the nagging voice at the back of her head.

Uchiha Itachi was staring at the girl, slightly annoyed. She was not paying him the amount of attention he normally commanded, and he didn't like the feeling. He could kill her right now, with just a passing thought he could mentally cripple her for life. She didn't seem to notice. Instead she was looking around the empty space he had chosen to talk with her in as though she was looking for someone, but she was moving painfully slowly, if it wasn't for the quick roaming of her irises he would have thought she was just examining her surroundings.

When she looked back at him it was as though she had just realized he was there. That really bothered him. She should be aware of his presence at all times. She was here, alone, with him. He was in control.

"What is distracting you, kunoichi?" He looked at her straight in the eyes. He noticed that instead of being afraid, his red eyes seemed to attract her attention. He wanted to look away, but he was Uchiha Itachi, minor discomfort would be tolerated so that the girl could act stupidly.

She seemed to be a bit embarrassed by the question as she pulled herself together and thought of an appropriate answer, "Does this place go on forever?"

He almost twitched in annoyance, answering questions with more questions was something he didn't like people doing. He would not allow himself to do the same. "It does not. It is like a ball, you can walk all the way around"

"You can?" she looked genuinely surprised, "It looks so flat…"

"Indeed." He thought that the conversation was getting away from its original purpose so he allowed the Mangekyo to fade.

Sakura was disoriented when her mind awoke to find her body in it's old position, on her bed. Itachi was gone. It seemed like an elaborate dream in which she had subjected herself to a near-death situation. Maybe her subconscious was suicidal. Or maybe it was the fact that time had slid together since she had been there. Her room had no windows and she hadn't been let out since the incedent where she had tried to kill Itachi, thinking he was Sasuke. It might have been three days, it might have been one, either way, she was painfully aware of her lateness. She should be on-duty at the hospital right now.

She phased out for a bit before knocking on her large Plexiglas window commanded all of her attention. Shizune was outside her door, with Hidan holding onto her arm in a grip that left white marks around his fingers. She was completely limp and a bit of blood trailed onto the floor from her hairline. Sakura couldn't move quickly enough.

* * *

Every minute of every hour was pure, unending pain for Naruto. Sakura was _really_ late. The A-ranked teams in the area had come in on time, mostly unharmed. None of them had seen the pink-haired girl. Some of them even seemed genuinely disappointed that she wouldn't be there to treat them when they arrived at the hospital. They informed him that she was a "regular ball of fire" even though she was a tad spacey at times.

Naruto had laughed along and agreed with them, even though he wasn't entirely sure that sounded like the same Sakura he had known when he was growing up. He was still sanding up in the same place he had been since early that morning. His legs hurt and he was hungry, but he would wait. Sakura would be home. He knew it.

Hinata was the first of his friends to join him in waiting, she had gone to the hospital first, but when they said Sakura wasn't there and that Naruto had already come to find her early that morning, she ad gone looking for the blonde-haired kid, hoping to find him somewhere that they could wait for Sakura together.

Standing in front of the village gates may not have been ideal, but it was time spent with Naruto, and she appreciated any of that she could get. Naruto had been happy to see her too, he had lifted his big hand to her head and tugged on her hair gently as hello. Hinata thought it was really sweet. The most endearing thing ever. She had almost fainted from embarrassment when she realized she was in public.

It was late afternoon now, and Hinata was not the only person who had joined Naruto for a time, Ino had gotten home early along with her team. Chouji and Shikamaru had stopped by with her to say 'hi' quickly before they left to debrief. Ino only came back to see if Sakura was home yet, she didn't seem to be very worried that her friend was late.

Naruto took Ino's lack of worry as encouragement and tried not to worry himself to death. Ino was Sakura's best friend, if she wasn't worried than it shouldn't be a big deal, right? Nauto hoped so, but something told him that this time, Sakura would be very, _very_ late. Just how late, Naruto didn't know.

Tsunate was ticked off. Sakura was late, and on top of that, all morning had been a blur of mission reports and debriefings. She hated debriefings. She didn't care if a team saw a goddamn squirrel on their way home and played with it, which is _exactly_ what her _top_ team had done this morning, so long as they made it home on time. Paperwork had to be filled out for every damn mission as well, and she had to _read_ it all. Some of those ninja had damn large vocabularies as well. And she hated formal writing.

"Hokage-sama?" a concerned voice attached to a large man filled the room. Chouji was addressing her for what was apparently not the first time. Realizing she had been spacing out, Tsunade replied.

"Hai?" she had tried to sound calm and collected, but instead it came out tired and grumpy. She wished it hadn't.

"May we leave now? This meeting is so troublesome…" Shikamaru's lazy drawl ticked her off a bit more and she waved a hand at them, allowing them to leave with Ino, who had, surprisingly, remained mostly quiet throughout the meeting. Maybe it was just because Sakura was a bit late in coming home. Usually Ino was the pushy one. You could never predict this new generation of ninja.

Suddenly there was a crash in the hallway. Tsunade was about to get up to investigate when Kakashi slid into her office, trying to look like he hadn't just fallen over.

"Sorry I'm late Hokage-sama," he rubbed the back of his head. "I accidentally walked under a ladder out behind the office and then I tripped while I was tring to avoid a black cat-"

"What do you need, Kakashi-san?"

Suddenly more professional, Kakashi replied, "I have just returned from my mission to find Sakura gone, shouldn't she be back from her mission by now?"

"Hai Kakashi, I am aware that she should be back by now. Naruto has been waiting for her since 3:00 A.M. or something crazy like that by the gate."

"I see," with that Kakashi was gone. No doubt he was off to read Icha Icha Paradise or something. She wished she had the time to read that crap. She looked at the pile of mission reports on her desk, they were higher than her head. She pulled one out from the middle, careful not to let the stack fall. When she was done reading it, a D-rank in which 3 genins had been forced to find the Daimyo's wife's cat (this turned out to be a very common mission, every team that came out of the academy had to do it at least once. It turns out that the cat doesn't like to stay home much.) she set it down next to the large pile of finished reports. The small movement of air from the falling pages caused the entie pile to fall over.

Papers scattered everywhere.

"Shizune?" she called impulsively. Shizune was late from her mission. She bent over to pick up one of the papers on the floor and her back cracked painfully. She was too old to be doing this without her personal assistant.

_I hate this job._ She thought glumly, as she began to organize the papers on the floor._ Shizune better be home soon._

_

* * *

_

Shizune seemed to be feeling better. She was now laying on her own cot, in the room next to Sakura's. The story was that a subordinate of Hidan's, who had not been aware of the situation with Sakura and Shizune, had tried to 'interrogate' her. About what, Sakura didn't know. She didn't care much.

Shizune's head had been split just next to her part-line. The cut was about seven centimeters long and was probably induced by blunt force trauma. Something flat had come down on her, or she had run into something with the top of her head. Sakura suspected the former was true. Nobody fell on top of their head.

She could wring the man's neck. Shizune had been in serious danger when Hidan had brought her to Sakura's room. She wasn't talking to Hidan at all, which was proper in the first place. It had just hit her that although the conditions were strange, she was still a prisoner. She was totally at the mercy of those who had been charged with her care. Somehow she didn't care at the moment, but she thought she might try to play it safe once Shizune was fully recovered.

Hidan didn't feel much. He was trying not to concentrate on the blood that was everywhere. It should be part of his ritual. He wanted to fucking kill something. It was taking everything he had not to just lean over and lick some of the goddamn spilt blood on the floor. He shouldn't transform inside the hideout, Leader-sama's orders. Some of Leader-sama's orders were just fucking stupid.

Hidan's tongue seemed to beg him to just fucking_ taste_ it. His brain pulled itself together when Sakura whirld around to glare at him. He had never been the object of her complete hatred before.

"Get _out,_" Sakura hissed at him through clenched teeth, "You're not helping by sitting there like a goddamn statue."

Hidan didn't take well to her talking to him like that. "Fucking shut the hell up, bitch. Just get her to stop fucking bleeding."

"She's not bleeding anymore, asshole." Sakura was poisonously angry.

"Then get back to your room girlie." Hidan was an asshole, yes, but that didn't mean he liked being called one.

Sakura let Hidan escort her back to her cell. She sat down in silence as Hidan closed the door with a loud bang and stormed through the halls of the dark basement used as a prison. His steps faded slowly, but shortly ater they disappeared there was a thundering from what Sakura assumed was the large wooden door separating the basement from the waking world.

She seethed. Even if she was a prisoner, she had done nothing wrong. Well, at least Shizune had not. She didn't understand why she was being kept alive here. Hidan and Kakuzu were going to kill her in the woods. She really couldn't fathom why they were still feeding her after she had tried to kill Itachi. It was clearly a misunderstanding, but didn't misunderstandings end badly with the Akatsuki? Better safe than sorry. At least that was what she had thought. Now she was confused.

And angry. They shouldn't be treating her this way. Not that she had any say. That might be what really ticked her off. She had no power. Just like always, but here was a blank slate. She wasn't being compared to Sasuke and Naruto. _**We're awesome! We kick some major ass!**_The screaming in her head led her onto a new train of thought.

_Am I allowed to ask you who you are now?_ Sakura prodded in a dead beat tone. Hoping that the voice would magically decide it was in the wrong place.

_**I'm **_**you**_** baka. I already said so. It's nice to finally talk again.**_

_You're me. Great. What the hell does that mean? _Sakura was not in the mood for these kinds of games. Her curiosity was all that she had left allowing her to talk to the stupid voice I her head.

Suddenly, like a ton of bricks, memories flooded back to the forefront of her mind. This wasn't a phenomenon that was new to her. All throughout her genin days this voice had plagued her. Well, it seemed like it was more help than hurt. It had always cheered for her when no one else would, or when she felt she needed it.

_Um… sorry for like, forgetting about you? _She postulated tentatively.

_**Hah! As if that'll make up for suddenly becoming deaf to me!**_

_Sorry?_ Sakura was a bit stunned that she had just forgotten about something as phenomenal as this. Then she remembered why she had. She had been practicing medical-jutsu when she had come across a book about mental conditions. She read the book in utter fascination and one specifically had struck a major chord in her head.

She had been ruffling through the pages of the finished book, ready to return it to the library when she had gotten a paper cut. Paper cuts were not unusual for the studious girl, but she detested them and preferred to heal them as soon as she got one. She had let the book fall open to the infuriating page that had cut her and healed it, doing a pretty fantastic balancing act in the process. When she looked down she noticed that the page in question was something she hadn't seen when she had been reading.

Some food product or something had stuck the page together. It was orange and it dotted the corner of the page just above where her blood marked the edge. The pages that had been stuck together contained an entire article, from start to finish, and had no trace of any others._ No wonder I missed it when I was reading._ She quickly scanned the page and as she read it in more detail a sudden dawning occurred to her.

She was the exact kind of individual the book was describing. 'Split Personality', the article in question, became her obsession soon after that. She had gone through many phases in medical interest in the past. None of them stood out more than the others after she had gotten through with them. Maybe that was why she had forgotten about it. Maybe she had employed 'doublethink', a concept she had come across in a novel years earlier. Funny how she remembered that so clearly.

When she had finally eradicated the 'voice' in her head, Sakura had promptly forgotten about it. It had taken very little effort to keep it from coming, once she knew what it was.

Sakura blinked slowly, letting the realization pour over her. Now that she had remembered, she was really sorry that she had tried to rid herself of her lifelong companion.

* * *

**A/N: So, its been a long tome since I updated, sorry guys. I haven't had a lot of time, I'm moving to China for a while, and it's been a lot of work getting my stuff together and stuff. Also, I've been traveling a lot. I've been back and forth across the country twice this summer, and Internet connection has been limited, along with time to sit down by myself and write.**

**Because of my move, this chapter may be the last one for nine months, although I hope not. The Chinese government limits access to certain websites, and due to the… sometimes pornographic nature of this website, I wouldn't be too surprised if I cant access it from Beijing.**

**Aside from that, I haven't looked at the site in a while, but almost none of you are reviewing my story, which makes me sad. So please review, even if it's just to say that my grammar sucks, which it probably does (I just re-read the third chapter and noticed some big ones, so if you notice grammar problems, please note that I'm in high school, and I have to proofread my own work, which is exceedingly boring, just in case you were wondering.**

**Thank you to all of you guys who have read this far, your views really mean a ton to me, even if you don't like my work.**

**As far as I know, the concept 'doublethink' belongs to George Orwell and is featured in his book 1984. I love the book, by the way, its so amazing, a true classic, and the language isn't outdated. Lots of politics, ideas, truth and sex (it's not graphic, so don't get excited, but its tasteful and present).**

**This is a really long author's note, which I would never read if I was you, I tend not to, which is a bit hypocritical, I guess. I haven't been reading much here recently anyway so I guess these no helping it. So now I'm gonna end it, although I have more to say and stuff, I could talk forever about stuff.**

**I love you guys!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I own nothing except the order these words are placed on the page.**

**Fideism**

_Fideism is a theory, which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths. The word fideism comes from fides, the Latin word for faith, and literally means faith-ism._

Hinata looked into her bag again. The money was still there. The money from the mission she had done. Secretly done. Her father had allowed her to go off by herself for the day, saying that she couldn't possibly get into trouble in such a time of peace. Hinata had walked out of the compound, heart pounding, and onto the street, careful to look like she considered both directions around her and choosing the one leading away from the Hokage tower, moving with decided slowness through the crowded streets and toward a park that she used to play in when she was little. Her father turned around and back into the compund before she was even two feet away, but she cautiously walked around for a bit in the morning, making sure that no one followed her. Afterwards, she made a beeline for the tower.

_Tsunade looked surprised to see Hinata arrive at the tower so early in the morning and so out of breath._

"_How much… money… can I get for… a full… day… of work?" Hinata asked between breaths, "if… we keep it off the… record…" she looked up at Tsunade pleadingly, hoping that her request wouldn't be followed by a plethora of questions that she didn't want to answer._

"_Why do you need that, child?" Tsunade asked, in a rare moment of maternal care. The poor girl looked like she really needed this._

"_I want… I don't want… my father…" Hinata was still breathing hard, but Tsunade suddenly understood that the girl did not want her to probe further into the subject. She held out a mission record, C-Rank, and handed it to Hinata._

"_This is the best I can do for today," Tsunade said kindly. "It'll be boring, but it pays decently." Hinata's eyes widened at the figure as she took the page._

"_I can get that much for just watching their children?" Tsunade looked pleased t the girl's surprised remark._

"_It's off the record, the mission hasn't been filed yet. I'm willing to give you all of the money for it." Tsunade held out another sheet of paper. The sum was doubled. Hinata looked up in awe._

"_When do I start?"_

"_Now is as good a time as ever." The corners of her lips turned up as Hinata flashed out of her office. She felt that she had done some good for the poor girl. It was nice to have something of your own for once._

Hinata looked into the bag once more, just to be sure. This was the first time she had done something behind her father's back. If he ever found out, he would probably disown her. Or maybe he would force her to withdraw from the ninja service. She arrived back at the house in good spirits and moved back to her room to hide the money quickly before her father asked what she had done all day.

_A small victory_. She thought happily, before entering her room. She slipped the cash under her bed, in between the mattress and the wooden frame. No one would look there anytime soon. She ruffled the sheets a little before making the bed again. It looked like she had taken an afternoon nap, not like she had been messing around with the mattresses.

Suddenly her stomach rumbled. Hinata realized that she had eaten nothing all day. She stood up from the floor of her room and plodded of to the kitchen, being sure to shut the door to her room behind her.

Sakura put her hand to her head. _The bleeding has stopped at least._ She thought, she was happy to be lucid. The beam had hit her pretty hard in the head before it had pinned her to the ground. She had no idea how it had happened. One minute she had been standing up, trying to get Hidan to let Shizune go somewhere where she could get proper medical attention. Hidan had been holding on to her stubbornly on the other side of the room when the building fell apart.

There must have been another floor above her that she didn't know about. In between her view of where Hidan and Shizune should be was a slab of concrete with an intricate painting hanging crookedly on it. It was almost straight from her point of view. The people in the paining were so small compared to the mountains they stood upon. It was impossible not to recognize the Ancient Chinese style of the art. The painting must have cost a fortune. Or maybe it had cost the owner a fortune. Did Akatsuki steal things?

Getting sidetracked while she thought was something she didn't do often. She made a conscious effort not to. But there was nothing better to do now. She guessed that the accident had happened twenty hours or so ago. It had been about 3:00 in the afternoon when the roof had come down. Now she would guess that it was 11:00 in the morning.

There had been a lot of shouting just after the crash. Sakura had not taken part in any of it. She recognized now that she had gone into shock. She had already been pumping adrenaline into her veins when it happened. Shock had set in immediately. She wondered if that was medically accurate. In any rate, that was what had happened.

Sakura thought about Shizune. She hoped that the nurse had not been pinned down as she had under the rubble, Shizune would have been able to run back to Konoha and find help. She was not so badly off that she could not move. Sakura, on the other hand, could not even get her arms into a favorable position to use her considerable strength to help herself up. She didn't care. She wouldn't have gotten up if she could anyway. She didn't feel like she could go home just now. She couldn't stand it without Naruto or Sasuke there.

She looked up at the sky and immediately regretted it. Harsh beams of sunlight broke through her vision and made colorful imprints on her irises. She groaned. At least it was a nice day. There might even be a warm evening to follow. Perfect weather for waiting.

_What am I waiting for?_ She thought slowly. She didn't want the Akatsuki to find her. She certainly didn't want to die. Maybe some Rain ninja? Speaking of rain, when did that stop? It had rained consistently since she had arrived and it was strangely eerie now that it had stopped. Sakura liked the rain.

The sound of splintering wood behind her was startling. She heard a masculine groan.

"What the fuck?" came the voice of the mover. Hidan. _Fucking Hell._ She tried to keep her whole body still and breathe lightly, so that he did not hear her, but his breaking of the timbers set of a domino effect and the timber that was holding her down came down on her body harder. She squeaked.

"Who's there?" he called out. Sakura kept her mouth shut, but it was too late. "Bitch, you better talk or when I find you…" he trailed off with a groan. She heard more splintering as he moved around. "Fuck…" he coughed a little and she noticed that it was an unhealthy cough, deep in the lungs and full of fluid. Blood, perhaps.

There was a sickening sound of ripping flesh and more coughing before he spoke again, "Speak, bitch. You better get your ass over here and fix me up before I get over there and fix you!"

"That's no way to talk to a lady, Hidan" a velvety voice threaded its way into Hidan's monologue, echoing across her thoughts. _Itachi_.

"Shut the hell up, asshole, and help me get up."

Itachi did not reply, instead, Sakura heard the soft swish of his cloak approach her. Slowly, a dark shadow passed in front of her closed eyelids, blocking out the bright redness of the sun through her eyelids. Sakura cracked her eyelids open to look up at him, her eyes watered from the brightness.

"Itachi!" shouted Hidan, "What the hell is taking so long?" It seemed that Hidan could not see Itachi from where he was pinned to the ground.

"Konoichi," Itachi said softly, "it appears you are stuck" Sakura did her best to glare at him threateningly, but only succeeded in letting more water run from the corners of her eyes.

"Yes, it would appear so," she calmly replied. In one sweeping motion, Itachi lifted the beam from her hips and allowed her to wriggle free of her accidental prison. She could feel the bruises left on her hipbones keenly, and struggled to stand up without wobbling. Her head pounded as blood clotted near her wound.

"Are you really helping that fucking bitch before me?" Hidan yelled, outraged. Sakura rolled her eyes and as they flicked over Itachi she thought she noticed a hint of a smirk shaping his lips, but when she looked again, it was gone. She looked for Hidan and easily found him in the wreckage. A huge piece of wood was stuck through his chest and smaller pieces stuck out of other parts of his upper body, a prominent one stuck right through his left shoulder, pinning him to the ground. Sakura almost grimaced, but instead trained her face into a decided smirk.

"Awkward angle?" she called out to him.

"Where are you bitch? I swear, when I get my hands around your sorry little neck you'll regret the day you were born." He thrashed around a bit, trying to get a view of her but failing. She walked over to him slowly, while Itachi cautiously watched and followed behind. Sakura stood right in front of Hidan and looked him straight in the eyes. Hidan stared back angrily but cautiously, waiting for the change in mood that would determine the next few seconds. He was sure that she would do something stupid like try to kill him.

Sakura sighed and kneeled down next to him. "There's no helping it," she muttered under her breath as she grabbed hold of the stick pinning Hidan to the ground. Hidan's eyes widened in surprise a moment before she wrenched on the large piece of wood.

"_Fuck!_"

A week had passed since Sakura was supposed to be at home. Naruto had made himself sick with worry. Tsunade had made a mess drinking in her office. Papers were scattered everywhere in the room. The desk was almost completely hidden behind unfinished work. Tsunade, who was in a perspicuous state of drunkenness, wobbled on her feet as she paced in front of Naruto and Kakashi.

"What information do we have on Sakura-chan?" Naruto was oddly professional in his speech.

"Nothing Naruto," Tsunade sighed, "it's like they disappeared off of the face of the planet." An urgent knock came at the door. Tsunade looked at the door, annoyed, before answering it "Come in."

A nurse stumbled into the room with an ANBU Capitan at her side. "Tsunade-sama! Your attention is needed immediately at the hospital!" the poor girl looked as if she had just run a marathon. She was slightly overweight, and Tsunade supposed that trying to keep up with someone in ANBU for the distance from the hospital to the Hokage Tower might be similar to a marathon.

"What's happened?" asked Naruto, out of place and unnoticed in the room. Tsunade and the nurse brushed him off as they hurried to leave, and his question hung in the air as though at any moment it would be answered. Naruto knew it would not. He slowly followed the ANBU out of the room and into the hallway, where he stopped to think about Sakura once again. He missed the pink haired kunoichi dearly. He plodded down the hall and down the stairs. He moved slowly as he passed by the other offices. Someday he would be working here. He would be Hokage. And Sakura would be home and safe. And Sasuke would come back.

Naruto opened the door of the tower and stepped out onto the busy street. He just barely caught a glimpse of a yellow pigtail disappearing in to the hospital at the end of the street. He assumed that Tsunade had made it there in record time.

Naruto headed home with a head full of thoughts of a more ideal life.

Tsunade's blood covered hands shook from exhaustion. She walked slowly over to the sink and washed her hands clean. The sucking sensation of the water pulling the sticky blood from her fingers made her more tired than the past eight hours of surgery had. She wished that she had slept better the night before. She wished that Shizune had come back with Sakura.

Shizune's body lay still on the table, waiting to be taken care of. Tsunade shuddered, the wet heat of a surgical room not affecting her. A small pile of blood covered splinters lay next to her surgical implements looking gloomy in the bright light.

The last of the blood washed down the drain and Tsunade finished washing her hands by wiping them on her white lab coat. Too pristine for her line of work. Of course it was taboo to come out of a surgery covered in blood, so there was a closet full of clean ones hidden in a corner of the room. God only knows how badly she needed a new one this time.

She looked into the cheap mirror hanging above the sink, there was rust behind the initial glass and she wondered silently if that was considered sanitary. She didn't care. She slowly straightened her pigtails and turned around to meet the nurse who would be moving Shizune.

"Where do you think we should put her?" asked the nurse quietly, she had been on standby the whole surgery and was just as tired as the poor Hokage.

"Anywhere you find suitable," Tsunade turned away and walked out into the hallway, feeling numb.

She pushed her way out of the surgical ward, holding the door open for the nurse behind her but parting when they reached the lobby. Tsunade went upstairs to take a quick, drug-induced nap before she was forced to go debrief with some of the village elders. She sighed heavily as she sank down into a hard hospital bed. She hadn't thought that the result of Shizune returning would be that harrowing experience. She had imagined quiet bickering and joking. She had imagined Sakura being with her. She had imagined reconciliation with her assistant.

She closed her bleary eyes, trying no to concentrate on it. She would be ready to face the world in a few hours, but now, sleep.

_What do I tell Naruto?_ She thought as her mind drifted off into the black abyss that was sleep.

Sakura smirked as the piece of wood came up into the air easily, spattering blood on Hidan's pasty white skin. He looked at her angrily and painfully, but was unable to say anything, because at present, his mouth was filling up with blood. He had bit his goddamn tongue off.

"How're ya feeling?" she asked and leaned over him like a nurse would in a hospital had he just sprained his ankle. He glared back up at her menacingly. "I think you'll live" Sakura smiled sweetly and stood up, wincing momentarily when she was painfully reminded that her hipbones were in bad condition. She moved a glowing green hand down to them, lifting up her shirt to make sure the process went well and watched as the bruises disappeared before her very eyes.

Hidan sent another searing glare in her direction before concerning himself with standing up.

Itachi stood by, amused to bear witness to the scene in front of him. Of course the girl would be angry. It wouldn't be prudent to reprimand her for something he enjoyed or for helping him do a job that he did not relish. Hidan was no friend of his. However, when Sakura thrust the chunk of wood in his direction he balked a bit, looking at it surprised before disregarding it. He wasn't taking that piece of trash.

Sakura sighed, "no need to look at me like I'm an idiot. What am I supposed to do with this shit?"

Itachi looked at her skeptically.

"Okay," she said, as though he had replied, "I just wanted your approval." And then she tossed it over her shoulder in what appeared to be a nonchalant matter. Only, the rafter flew high into the sky, finally landing with a heavy thump somewhere near the edge of the wreckage. Sakura brushed her hands off as though all she had done was bend down to pick something up from the ground.

"And you two used to get along so well," came the sarcastic twine of Kisame's rough voice. Hidan glared at the intrusion and Sakura smiled.

"Nice to see that you weren't caught under the house, Kisame-san." She shot off, as though they were colleagues at work or something. Kisame blinked once, and then his mouth widened into a large grin.

"Don't address you superiors with such familiarity," he warned.

Sakura looked him straight in the eyes, 'If you were going to kill me, you would have done so long ago. Keeping me alive must mean something, so I might as well talk."

"Confident, aren't we?" he smirked.

"Damn it all to hell!" came a yell from the far side of the wreckage.

"Sassori-dana! Don't be so upset, hn!"

Kisame rolled his eyes at the small outburst, "What have you done to upset him this time Deidara?" he called out.

There was some loud rummaging and then a blonde head popped up into view. He clambered out of the rubble and into the light. His Akatsuki cloak was magically unharmed and it fluttered around his shoulders as he walked towards the group. "I see you've found the little girl, hn."

"That's not an answer," Said Kisame, seemingly not amused.

"Sasori's gonna lose his tail, hn," Deidara sighed. Kisame broke into a huge grin.

"Hey puppet boy? I'm sure it'll grow back in a few days!" He sounded almost giddy in his taunts. Hidan had finally managed to stand up and was making his way slowly toward Sakura, glaring angrily.

"There'll be none of that," came the smooth, dark voice of Kakuzu from behind Hidan, "injuring the prisoner is strictly off-limits." He chuckled quietly to himself. Sakura shot a glance a Kisame as if to say 'I told you so'. He only smirked in reply; his mind was focused on the spot where Sassori was supposed to emerge.

Finally, painstakingly slowly, the red-haired Sassori emerged from the pile of rubble, toting a pack full of what appeared to be large summoning scrolls. Kisame looked as though he would giggle in delight at any moment.

"We have to move out," came the somber tone of Itachi's voice.

Sakura found herself surprised to wholeheartedly agree with his suggestion, "where?" she asked brashly.

Kakuzu chuckled, "do you think we actually tell people like you that?"

"Well I just assumed, since it doesn't look like one of you is carrying me all the way to wherever we're going."

"Cheeky," hissed Hidan, his tongue fully re-grown.

"Damnit," she barely heard Kisame hiss, "I thought that might take a bit longer this time…"

"I believe we should be going," Kakuzu inclined his head towards Itachi, who, although appearing to be patiently waiting, was also playing a bit too visibly with a kunai. Sassori inclined his head in agreement.

"hn," deidara nodded vigorously.

"Lets get on with it," grumbled Kisame, before looking back at Hidan, "can you move yet?" Hidan gave a swift nod, before returning to his previous occupation of glaring at Sakura.

Itachi shot out into the woods in the east, working his way forest along the tree line and then toward a small rise in the landscape in the north. Kisame followed directly. Sakura cautiously moved without direct permission and when she found that no one had taken a disliking to her actions, she sped up to meet the two in front. Kakuzu and Hidan followed shortly thereafter while Sassori and Deidara took up the rear.

Soon, each tree looked exactly the same to the travelers, and each hour passed as though it was an eternity. They pushed on into the dark of the night, fighting back weariness and sleep to continue their flight.

When they finally came to a rest, Sakura was exhausted. Half way through the night she had begun to shoot tiny tendrils of her chakra through her legs in order to keep up with the group. She breathed heavily as the group settled down.

"We will camp here for the night," Itachi stated. He was clearly in charge of this whole mess.

"Konoichi," came Deidara's voice from behind her. Sakura changed her attention to it. "Make some food."

Sakura's face reddened in indignation before she realized that she was hungry too. She turned around and looked at the sorry campsite. _First, a fire. _She walked out into the forest, a bewildered Deidara staring after her.

She came back to the camp a few minutes later with a large pile of wood and a rabbit, neck already broken.

Kisame blinked twice, before nudging Itachi, "Light it,"

Itachi glared at the apparent order, but moved toward the slowly appearing semblance of a fire the girl was creating. Before he had approached her fully, however, Sakura had already done a small katon of her own, lighting the fire. She held out her hand toward him.

Itachi examined her open palm inquisitively. There was nothing remarkable about it. The fact that it was shoved towards him was annoying, but otherwise, he saw no need to acknowledge that it was there at all. He heard her gently sigh before wiggling her fingers a little bit. Why was her hand there?

"Kunai," she finally stated, giving up on Itachi's ability to determine her thoughts.

"Hn," he sighed and pulled one out of his holster, handing it, blade first, to her. She casually grabbed it before using it to skin and gut the rabbit.

"If you need more, you'll have to catch it yourself, I don't believe you'll let me into the woods with proper hunting equipment," she spoke aloud, not directing her words at anyone. Deidara produced a stick from somewhere and soon the rabbit was being roasted over the fire, the smell permeating the air of the clearing until even Sassori thought he could taste it.

When the rabbit was done, Deidara was the first one to converge on the meat, looking hungrier than everyone else, however, to Sakura's surprise, the meat was shared almost equally between the group, with slightly more going to Kisame, who clearly needed a larger caloric intake to support himself. She even got a share, and nibbled on it quietly on the edge of the clearing, trying to not think about how tired she was. She rubbed her feet half-heartedly, hoping that a small massage would take away the ache of the day. She knew it would not.

She thought about how she would look to an outsider right now. One disheveled, pink-haired girl with six muscled men alone in a forest. She took stock of herself. Hair: messy. Clothing: dirty, at best. She felt her face and noticed that when she pulled her fingers away there was some soot. _Damn. On top of having traveled all day, I also have soot on my face. I look like a homeless person._ She sighed and raked her fingers through her hair, managing to dislodge a leaf and part of a twig in the process. _I hope wherever we're headed has showers._

With that thought, the small pink-haired girl fell into a light slumber, completely oblivious to the men around her.

The rain outside was hardly a damper on Hinata's mood. She pushed her short black hair behind her ears. She had just had it cut. It was different than how she normally wore it, not so stuck up in the back. Sleeker, more stylish. She had taken the hairdresser's advice and bought that expensive shampoo, and running her fingers through her short locks, she was inclined to agree with him that it did make her hair softer. It also smelled good. A faint curl of jasmine filled her nose every time she took a breath. It went really well with the new perfume she had bought. Lavender, the woman at the shop had said, but she thought it smelt more like freshly cut grass.

Oh how she loved the feeling of smelling good. It was second only to the feeling she had when she was around Naruto, and the feeling of freedom she had when she went out by herself.

She never wore such things at home. Recently, she had used any excuse to go out and babysit other people's kids. Every time she went out, she earned enough money to think about going the next time. It wasn't that she was greedy, it was more that she wanted to achieve her goals so much. On days where she couldn't babysit, she trained hard. She worked her body harder than she ever had in secret. She hoped that it would help her feel more confident when it came time to act on her desires, but she didn't know.

She hadn't seen Naruto in the last few days, apparently someone had come in from an important mission and been in surgery for a long time. There was no news on who it was or hat had happened to their team, but it didn't seem like anyone was missing but Sakura and Shizune. There had been no word on them in a long time. Maybe it was an AMBU member. Someone so undercover, that even knowing that they existed meant that you were trusted in the village. Maybe it was someone from Sand, they sometimes sent emergency patients out to Konoha when they couldn't treat them fully.

Hinata shook her head. She hoped Sakura was okay. She didn't know what she would do without the girl. It sometimes kept her worrying for hour on end about how Naruto would take it. He really did love her.

The smell of a bakery assaulted her nose from the side of the street, drawing her away from her musings. She stepped in, hoping to find a light lunch and was engulfed in the armth of the ovens, which had been working since early that morning. She looked around for a moment, and then turned to the nearest person, "Do they have coffee at this place?" she asked politely.

"Hinata-sama. What are you doing out of the compound?" Hinata's heart sunk as she looked up into the eyes of the one person she never wanted to meet off of the compound.

"Neiji-san…"

A cold breeze swept through the clearing where they slept. Sakura shivered slightly. The filtered light shone down through the leaves leaving yellow and green splotches on the forest floor. There was a pop from the Fire, which had apparently just reached its last stage in life. Sakura stretched out her arms away from herself and rolled over, letting a small moan escape from her lips as the pleasurable sensation of a good night's rest filled her body. Lying on her stomach, she opened her eyes slowly, only to find that she was not looking at the grass and dirt, as she should be, but a pair of feet. She quickly sat up into a kneeling position to face the intruder to her privacy. Her eyes rose slowly to meet an amused sapphire gaze.

"Comfortable?" the voice belonging to the voice asked, clearly making a joke of the position she had found herself in that morning.

She shook her head slightly to clear her brain of the morning bleariness and got to her feet, rising slowly, so as to look as little of a threat as possible.

She had been dreaming that night about a world that you could walk all the way around, where black was white and white was black.

_She was all alone. She walked endlessly, looking for other people. She walked over mountains, forded rivers and searched endless catacombs tirelessly, looking for a companion. She could feel scratching at the back of her head, asking her why she was so alone, wondering how to find another person, when she had stumbled across Konoha. The village was how it had always been. Naruto stood at the gate, waving. She waved back, but he didn't seem to see her._

_Suddenly, Sasuke passed her, his head raised in a stare, looking directly at Naruto. The rest of the village came out of the gates, welcoming The Last Uchiha home. She had run up to the group, trying to push through to get a glimpse of Sasuke, to make sure he was okay. Her heart went out to him in that instant. He was home. He had come back for her. She didn't have to kill him._

_She finally pushed to the front of the crowd where she could see him after a bit of struggling._

"_Sasuke!" she had called out desperately. Wanting so badly for him to notice her for once. He turned around and recognition flashed in front of his eyes for a moment before he turned back to Naruto._

"_It's been a while," he had said, as he reached out to shake his best friend's hand. Naruto pulled him into a hug._

"_Nothing has changed since you were gone," Naruto jested lightly, "You didn't miss anything."_

_A singe tear fell from Sakura's eyes. She had been completely rejected._

"Where are they?" Sakura asked, brushing off the vivid memory.

"They told me to let you have your beauty sleep, we're almost there." Deidara turned on his heel and took off into the trees. Sakura followed close behind. Four and a half hours of hard running later, Sakura realized that he had lied, but that she didn't care. They trusted her to be able to keep up. Sakura smiled and pushed harder, she would get there when she got there, in the meantime, she should practice her chakra control. Her arm shot out and smashed a tree trunk to bits as she passed by.

Deidara turned back to make sure that he asn't under attack, only to find a stressed pink haired teenager destroying the forest.

"Just don't get blood on yourself," he called out to her.

Sakura smirked, "As if."

**A/N: Hey guys! It's been like three months, so I don't expect all of you to read this, but I hope you do! China has been really, really hectic, so I hope this is enough to fill the gap that I left. I can't talk much now, but I love you guys!**

**3**


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